Vanilla

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For other uses, see Vanilla (disambiguation).

Vanilla beans

Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids in the genus Vanilla. The name came from the Spanish word "vainilla", meaning "little pod".^[1]

1 Botanical aspects: The Vanilla orchid
2 History
3 Chemistry
4 Stages of production
5 Uses
6 Specific types of vanilla
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Botanical aspects: The Vanilla orchid

Main article: Vanilla (orchid)

The main species harvested for vanillin is Vanilla planifolia. It is a native of Mexico, though it is now widely grown throughout the tropics. Madagascar is the world's largest producer. Additional sources include Vanilla pompona and Vanilla tahitiensis (grown in Tahiti).
Vanilla is a vine: it grows by climbing over some existing tree, pole, or other support. It can be grown in a wood (on trees), in a plantation (on trees or poles), or in a "shader", in increasing orders of productivity. Left alone, it will grow as high as possible on the support, with few flowers. Every year, growers fold the higher parts of the plant downwards so that the plant stays at heights accessible by a standing human. This also greatly stimulates flowering.

Vanilla planifolia - flower

The part of the plant in which the distinctive flavored compounds are found is the fruit, resulting from the pollination of the flower. One flower produces one fruit. Vanilla planifolia flowers are hermaphrodite: they carry both male (anther) and female (stigma) organs; however, to avoid self-pollenization (which would tend to result in genetic deficiencies), a membrane separates those organs. Such flowers may only be naturally pollinated by a specifically equipped bee found in Mexico. Growers have tried to bring this bee into other growing locales, to no avail. The only way to produce fruits is thus artificial pollination.

A simple and efficient artificial pollination method was introduced in 1841 by a 12 year-old slave named Edmond Albius on Réunion, then a French colony, in the Indian Ocean. This method is still used today. Using a bevelled sliver of bamboo,^[2] an agricultural worker folds back the membrane separating the anther and the stigma, then presses the anther on the stigma. The flower is then self-pollinated, and will produce a fruit. The vanilla flower lasts about one day, sometimes less, thus growers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers, a labor-intensive task.

The fruit (a seed pod), if left on the plant, will ripen and open at the end; it will then exhaust the distinctive vanilla smell. The fruit contains tiny black seeds which carry no vanilla flavor. These black seeds are the tiny black specks found in dishes prepared with whole natural vanilla.

Like other orchids, vanilla seed will not germinate without the presence of certain mycorrhizal fungi. Growers reproduce the plant by cutting: they cut sections of the vine with six or more leaf nodes, which have a root opposite each leaf. The lower two leaves are removed and this portion is covered in loose soil at the base of the support tree or post. The remaining upper roots will cling to the support and often will eventually also grow down into the soil. Growth is rapid under good conditions.

[edit] History

Vanilla was a highly regarded flavoring in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and was brought back to Europe (and from there the rest of the world) by the Spanish Conquistadors.

In ancient Mexico the Totonac people were regarded as the producers of the best vanilla. The Totonac are from the region that is now known as the state of Veracruz (Papantla, Mexico, holds itself out as the origin of vanilla). They continued to be the world's chief producers of the flavoring through the mid 19th century. At that time, French vanilla growers in Mexico traded their knowledge of artificial pollination of flowers for the Totonac knowledge of preparing the beans.

The Coca-Cola Corporation is the world's largest customer of natural vanilla extract. When New Coke was introduced in 1985, the economy of Madagascar crashed, and only recovered after New Coke failed. The reason was that New Coke used vanillin, a less expensive synthetic substitute, and purchases of vanilla more than halved during this period.^{[citation needed]}

The market price of vanilla rose dramatically high in the late 1970s due to a typhoon. Prices stayed stable at this level through the early 1980s due to the pressure of recently introduced Indonesian vanilla. In the mid 1980s the cartel that had controlled vanilla prices and distribution since its creation in 1930 disbanded. Prices dropped 70% over the next few years to nearly $20 USD per kilo. This changed due to typhoon Huddah, which struck early in the year 2000. The typhoon, political instability, and poor weather in the third year drove vanilla prices to an astonishing $500 USD per kilo in 2004. A good crop coupled with decreased demand have pushed the market price down to the $40 per kilo range in the middle of 2005.

[edit] Chemistry

Chemical structure of vanillin

Main article: vanillin

Though there are many compounds present in the extracts of vanilla, the compound predominantly responsible for the characteristic flavor and smell of vanilla is known as vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde). Another minor component of vanilla essential oil is piperonal (heliotropin). Piperonal and other substances affect the odor of natural vanilla.

Vanilla essence comes in two forms: the actual extract of the seedpods, and the far cheaper synthetic essence, basically consisting of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol. Natural vanilla is an extremely complicated mixture of several hundred different compounds, versus synthetic vanillin which is derived from phenol and is of high purity.^[3]

[edit] Stages of production

A vanilla plantation in a wood on Réunion Island

Step 1: Harvest

The beans are harvested green and immature. At this stage they are odorless.

Step 2: Killing

The vegetative tissue of the vanilla pod is killed to prevent it from growing further after being harvested. The method of killing the tissue varies, but may be through: (1) sun killing, (2) oven killing, (3) hot water killing, (4) killing by scratching, or (5) killing by freezing.

Step 3: Sweating

The beans are then held for 7 to 10 days under humid and high temperature (45 º to 65 ºC) conditions, often by placing the beans in fabric covered boxes immediately after boiling. This allows enzymes to process the compounds in the beans into vanillin and other compounds important to the final vanilla flavor.

Step 4: Drying

To prevent rotting and to lock the aroma in the pods, the beans are then dried, often by laying out in the sun during the mornings and then returned to their boxes in the afternoons. When the bean reaches 25-30% of its weight in moisture (as opposed to the 60-70% it began the drying process with) it has completed the curing process and will exhibit its fullest aromatic qualities.

Step 5: Grading

When fully cured the vanilla is sorted by quality and graded.

[edit] Uses

2005 Top Vanilla Producers of the World
Country	Production (tonnes)	%
Madagascar	6,200	59%
Indonesia	2,399	23%
China	1,000	10%
Mexico	189
Turkey	170
Comoros	140
Tonga	130
Belgium	100
Uganda	70
French Polynesia	50
Réunion	35
Malawi	20
Zimbabwe	10
Portugal	10
Kenya	8
Guadeloupe	8
Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO)[3]

There are three main commercial preparations of natural vanilla :

whole bean,
powder (pure ground beans or blended with sugar, starch or other ingredients)^[4],
extract (in alcoholic solution)^[5].

Vanilla flavor in creams, cakes and other foodstuff may be achieved by adding some vanilla extract or by cooking vanilla beans in the liquid preparation. A stronger aroma may be attained if the beans are split in two; exposing greater surface area of the bean to the liquid. In this case, the innards of the beans (the seeds), consisting of flavorless tiny black grains, are mixed into the preparation. Natural vanilla gives a brownish to yellowish colour to preparations, depending on concentration.

Good quality vanilla has a strong aromatic flavor, but foodstuffs with small amounts of low quality vanilla or artificial vanilla-like flavorings are far more common, since true vanilla is much more expensive.

One major use of vanilla is in flavoring ice cream : the most common flavor of ice cream is vanilla, and thus most people consider it to be the "default" flavor. By analogy, the term "vanilla" is used as a synonym for "plain".

Another use is in the cosmetics industry as an ingredient of perfumes.

In old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers, but these purported uses have never been scientifically proven.

Essential oil of vanilla and vanilin were and are sometimes used in aromatherapy.

Methyl vanillin is used by the food industry as well as ethyl vanillin. The ethyl is more expensive but has a stronger note. Cook's Illustrated ran several taste tests pitting vanilla against vanillin in baked goods and other applications, and to the consternation of the magazine editors, all tasters preferred the flavor of vanillin to vanilla.

[edit] Specific types of vanilla

Bourbon vanilla or Bourbon-Madagascar vanilla, produced from Vanilla planifolia, is the term used for vanilla coming from Indian Ocean islands such as Madagascar, the Comoros, and Réunion, which had the name Île Bourbon when a simple and efficient artificial pollination method was introduced there in 1841.

Mexican vanilla, also made of Vanilla planifolia, is produced in much less quantity and marketed as the vanilla from the land of its origin. Sometimes vanilla sold in tourist markets around Mexico is not actual vanilla extract, but in fact mixed with an extract of the tonka bean which contains coumarin. While tonka bean extract smells and somewhat tastes like vanilla, coumarin has been shown to cause liver damage in lab animals and is banned in the US by the Food and Drug Administration.[[4]]

Tahitian vanilla is the name for vanilla from French Polynesia. As it is made of Vanilla tahitiensis it has a clear distinct fragrance and taste.

The term French vanilla is not a type of vanilla but is often used to designate preparations that actually have a strong vanilla aroma, and contain vanilla grains, but originates from the French style of making ice cream custard base with vanilla beans, cream, and egg yolks.