Imagine on a hot stuffy day, you meet an ice cream truck and the ice cream man asks ‘Chocolate or Vanilla?’ What would you choose? In general, the most representative flavor of ice cream would be chocolate or vanilla flavored ice cream.
Vanilla flavors aren’t restricted to ice creams but in the baking industry as well vanilla flavored sponge cakes mostly serve as the basic foundation for cakes before additional flavors are added.
Vanilla flavor is also found in coffee, snacks, candles and in everyday life. What exactly is a vanilla and how did it become so popular in our everyday life?
History of Vanilla
Vanilla (genus Vanilla) plants are a member of the Orchidacae which is a family of plants that flourishes when supported by other plants as they use their vines and climb on other plants for their growth.
Vanilla originates from Central America and the northern parts of Southern America.
The Spanish crew of the conquistador Hernán Cortés were the first Europeans to ever taste vanilla during their expedition in Southern America. The Aztec civilization have been using vanilla to enhance flavor of their xocoatl(chocolatl) which is a beverage made from chocolate.
Per belief, the Aztecs might have acquired vanilla during their conquest of the Totonacs which was a culture that resided on the east of Mexico.
Hernán Cortés introduced vanilla (even chocolate) to Europe during his multiple expeditions before he vanished.
Initially, vanilla wasn’t as popular as pepper, chocolate or other food and additives as Europeans only thought vanilla was an additive to chocolate. However, as time passed by, people started to use vanilla in different recipes and realized its unique purpose.
The French started to use vanilla in ice creams during the 1700’s. Thomas Jefferson who would later become the 3rd president of the United States was the American Minister to France in Paris when he first encountered vanilla ice cream.
Thomas Jefferson immediately fell in love with vanilla ice cream that he copied down the recipe and brought it to the United States.
His written recipe is currently preserved in the Library of Congress. Americans should thank Thomas Jefferson not only for his contributions to the nation but for also for the introduction of vanilla ice cream to the United States of America.
By the mid-late 19th centuries, the demand of vanilla substantially increased as it became an essential spice and flavoring.
Why cultivation of vanilla is difficult
Cultivation of Vanilla demands special conditions which makes it exclusively tricky to cultivate. The environment should be a warm (Above 20°C and below 34 °C per multiple sources) enough with an annual irrigation that could provide a humid environment.
Vanilla also requires a plant that it could grip its vine around for growth, shady environment with not too much sunlight exposure, and a specific species of bees called Melipona bees for pollination. (Some suggest that Euglossine bees could be the primary pollinator).[1]
Another problem for the cultivation of Vanilla is that Vanilla pods don’t develop on a regular schedule and rather their vanilla bean pods developed and are able to be harvested at a random timepoint.
Vanilla don’t even have their distinctive scent and flavor at the moment they are harvested and require more time and space for fermentation that they start to develop their distinctive scent and flavor by enzymatic reactions.
Cultivation of Vanilla
An enslaved boy named Edmond Albius discovered a hand pollinating technique that enabled cultivation on other regions such as Madagascar and contribute to the increase of yield of vanilla in Mexico where it is indigenous.[2]
This pollinating method was named the Albius Method after his name. Despite the invention of the Albius Method, still cultivation of vanilla is only limited to certain regions of the world due to the various conditions that needs to be satisfied.
Currently, Madagascar is the largest producer of vanilla in terms of quantity and net price of export.
Among the 250 ~ 500 chemicals that constitute the distinctive vanilla flavor by fermented vanilla beans, Vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) is the chemical most responsible for the distinctive vanilla flavor.
Also, luckily unlike other chemicals that may be impossible to artificially synthesize without enzymes or bioengineering, vanillin could be artificially synthesized even in a profitable industrial scale.
History of Vanillin
Vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde)
The French biochemist Nicolas-Theodore Gobley was the first person to extract ‘Vanillin’ from vanilla extract in 1858. ‘Vanillin’ is the crucial chemical that produces the pleasant scent and flavor of vanilla.
German scientists Ferdinand Tiemann and Wilhelm Haarmann were able to identify the chemical and molecular structure of Vanillin and they were the first people to artificially synthesize Vanillin as well.
Thanks to these scientists, vanillin could be synthesized in large scale chemical productions that could sustain the world-wide demand of vanilla flavor.
Scientist such as Nethaji J Gallage and Birger Lindberg Møller could introduce vanillin strains modified yeast, modified tobacco and modified barley in vivo and successfully demonstrated in vitro vanillin modification as well.(Nat. Commun., DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5037).
Thus, vanillin could be synthesized by various methods even in profitable industrial scales.
Vanillin and Vanilla Industry
Even though vanilla flavor is one of the most common flavors, only a very small percentage of the vanilla flavor is actually made from natural fermented vanilla. The majority of the vanilla flavor that the public could experience is from synthesized vanillin.
Only about 2% ~ 7% of ‘Vanilla’ is believed to derive from actual fermented vanilla. As the world’s largest importer of vanilla, the US FDA puts a strict regulation on vanilla in terms of advertising and packaging.
Only products that actually use authentic fermented vanilla are allowed to use the term ‘vanilla’ without putting ‘artificial’ or ‘vanilla flavored’ on them while products that use vanillin must distinguish themselves as ‘vanilla flavored’ or state they used ‘artificial vanilla’.
In fact, vanilla is commonly known as the second expensive spice per kg right after saffron.
Saffron may cost 10,000 USD per kg while vanilla could cost 400 USD per kg. (This price fluctuates a lot and this information is written after the environmental crisis of Madagascar.)
This is because the cultivation of vanilla is labor extensive and could only be conducted on specific environments in very few countries. Cultivation of vanilla is also a labor extensive work that requires pollinating and harvesting all by human labor.
Also, Madagascar that accounts for 80% of the worldwide vanilla production and about 65% of vanilla export was affected by cyclones (hurricane or typhoon.) and other environmental disasters. Thus, the crises at Madagascar inevitably severely impacted the whole vanilla market.[3]
Most of the vanilla flavor thus derives from synthetic vanillin. Many major F&B companies recently declared to use only natural ingredients in their products and eliminate food additives out of their products to meet demand of ‘naturality’ by consumers.
However, without genetic modification or chemical synthesis of vanillin and infuse authentic vanilla for general consumer products would be highly costly. Thus, the dilemma of replacing vanilla flavor would be a difficult task for such companies. [4]
Although it is highly likely that we might have only experienced the artificial vanilla flavor by vanillin rather than the real authentic, this may be another reason for us to live on life to have an opportunity to experience authentic vanilla. Imagine a life without vanilla.
Cakes, snacks and most importantly, ice cream wouldn’t taste the same. Life wouldn’t feel the same without vanilla flavors regardless of whether it is authentic or not. Maybe today is a day that we should thank all of those who contributed to the vanilla industry.
[2] Magazine, Smithsonian. “The Bittersweet Story of Vanilla.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 3 Apr. 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/bittersweet-story-vanilla-180962757/.
[4] Rupp, Rebecca. “The History of Vanilla.” Culture, National Geographic, 4 May 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/plain-vanilla.
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