They sent it north to the Aztecs, who flavored
their chocolate drinks with it (p. 695). The
first Europeans to taste vanilla were the
Spanish, who gave it its name; vainilla is the
Spanish diminutive for “sheath” or “husk”
(from the Latin vagina). A 19th-century
Belgian botanist, Charles Morren, figured out
how to pollinate vanilla flowers by hand, and
thus made it possible to produce the spice in
regions that lacked the proper pollinating
insects. And the French took the vine to the
islands off the coast of southeast Africa that
now supply much of the world: Madagascar,
Réunion, and Comoros, which collectively
produce what is called Bourbon vanilla.
Today, Indonesia and Madagascar are the
world’s largest producers. It’s the attentive
and extensive labor required to hand-pollinate
the vanilla flowers and cure the pods, and the
low production of the few regions that
cultivate it, that make vanilla so expensive.
Vanilla’s rich flavor is the creation of
barry
(Barry)
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