by Elizabeth Barrette 
Vanilla is a spice so subtle that its name has become a synonym for “nothing” or “normal.” This is easy to understand if you have encountered the thin, flat taste of artificial vanilla flavoring. However, the real deal is a flavor of symphonic complexity. It’s just not as loud as, say, cinnamon, which can easily overpower everything else in a dish. Vanilla is the spice that binds everything else together.
Growing Vanilla Vines
Vanilla comes from the pods of the flat-leaved vanilla vine, Vanilla planifolia. It belongs to a genus of around 110 species in the orchid family. Members of the genus grow in tropical and subtropical habitats around the world, from the Americas to southern Asia and parts of western Africa. Several species even grow as far north as the United States, all of them in the southern tip of Florida. Native to Mexico, the vanilla vine has been transported to other tropical regions for use as a cash crop. Today, Madagascar is the leading producer.
The vines can grow over a hundred feet tall, although domesticated ones tend to be shorter and require a host tree or post to climb. Oblong leaves sprout alternately from the narrow stem. Flowers appear in voluptuous bunches of twenty to a hundred. Large and complicated, they may be white or tinted greenish or yellowish. They give off a sweet scent. A challenge for vanilla farmers is that each flower only opens for a few hours—if it doesn’t get pollinated then, it falls off without fruiting. In Mexico, it has its own pollinators, but elsewhere it requires laborious hand-pollination every day during the blooming season.
Vanilla is the only orchid that bears edible fruit, often called “vanilla beans” although they are not true beans. The pods take eight to nine months to ripen. They turn black and release a potent fragrance. A pod holds thousands of tiny black seeds. Both the seeds and the leathery pod can be used for various purposes. The central flavor comes from vanillin, but many other phytochemicals contribute to its characteristic flavor and aroma.
Because the vines require a tropical climate, few people can grow them outdoors. If you live in a warm, moist place, however, you might want to try it—especially in the tip of Florida. Farther north, people put them in big pots so they can be moved according to the weather or grow them in greenhouses.
Growing your own vanilla is very challenging, but if you’re bored with other houseplants, give it a try. It’s not that much harder than other orchids or plants like gardenia and jasmine, and people manage to grow those. First, you need a pot at least twelve inches wide, filled with orchid mix. Then you need a sturdy support for the vine to climb, preferably a rot-resistant wood such as cypress or cedar. It requires bright but indirect light. Hot sun will burn the delicate leaves, while deep shade will retard growth. Keep humidity high and temperatures between 70 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Vanilla can tolerate somewhat cooler temperatures than that, but growth slows down. Water both the support and the potting medium, allowing the pot to dry slightly in between. Fertilize with a balanced product, and consider using one of the orchid mists designed to promote flowering.
Producing blooms is the real challenge. The vines must reach three to five feet high before they will bloom at all, which typically takes three years. When the vine reaches the top of its support and begins to drape down, that tends to trigger flowering. Each flower spike will open slowly, most often one blossom per day. These are easy to hand-pollinate with a cotton swab or toothpick, and the flowers are self-fertile, but you must be able to reach them while they’re open or you’ll get nothing except the flowers themselves.
If you do it right, long green pods will form. They are ready to harvest when the tip turns yellow. Then they require a complex maturation process. To cure them, scald the pods in 93-degree water for three to four minutes. To sweat them, spread the beans on mesh racks in strong sunlight for two hours a day for five to six days. To dry them, spread them on racks in an airy room for three to four weeks. To condition them, bundle the dried pods in buttered paper and store them in wooden boxes for three months. Mature pods have intense fragrance and good flavor.
History and Lore
Vanilla was discovered long ago, and control of it has changed hands many times over the centuries. The first known users were the Totonac people of Mexico. They called the vine Tlilxochitl and learned how to use its pods. Later the Aztecs moved in and defeated the Totonac, taking over the vanilla vines. The Spaniards came, invaded the Aztecs, and then shipped vanilla beans to Europe in the early 1500s. At first, the precious spice cost so much that only the rich and powerful could enjoy it. Gradually, its use spread, and vanilla became popular throughout much of Europe, although it remained expensive.
In the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson served as ambassador to France. There he encountered vanilla in the cuisine. When he returned to the United States, he brought vanilla beans with him. Thus began its spread in America.
Artificial vanilla is bland. Genuine vanilla is a rich, complex flavor.
Although people managed to grow the vines, they had great difficulty in producing pods. It took almost three hundred years before the Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered the missing piece to the puzzle in 1837: the stingless Melipona bee, native to Mexico, pollinated the flowers. Then in 1841, hand-pollination was invented by Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old boy enslaved on the island of Réunion. From this French colony, vanilla vines were exported around the French Empire along with instructions for hand-pollination. This enabled France to dominate vanilla production.
Because of its expense, genuine vanilla retains associations with luxury, despite its artificial knockoffs being the epitome of all that is common. For many people, its warm milky odor brings up happy childhood memories of baking in the family kitchen. In perfumes, it creates a gentle and nurturing connotation.
Orchid flowers in general symbolize beauty, charm, fertility, love, refinement, and thoughtfulness. White orchids stand for reverence, humility, elegance, and purity. Yellow orchids evoke friendship, joy, and new beginnings. Green orchids symbolize health, nature, and longevity. Vanilla customarily blooms somewhere in that color range. In ancient Greece, orchids represented virility-in particular, large roots related to a baby boy while small ones related to a baby girl. In Victorian England, people displayed vanilla orchids as a sign of wealth, opulence, and fine taste.
Ups and Downs of Vanilla
The world supply of vanilla pods can’t come close to meeting the massive demand. Around the world, about eighteen thousand products advertise themselves as vanilla flavored. This causes a number of problems. As more manufacturers respond to the growing consumer demand for genuine and sustainable ingredients, some of these problems are getting worse.
Around 98 percent of commercially used “vanilla” is artificial, either wholly synthetic or manufactured from sources other than vanilla pods. Natural materials used to produce vanillin include clove oil, lignin, pine bark, and rice bran. Compared to real vanilla, this type of vanillin has a thin, flat flavor. It appears on labels as “vanillin,” “vanilla flavoring,” or simply “natural flavors.” Vanillin can also be synthesized from the petrochemical precursor guaiacol. It often has a pronounced metallic or chemical flavor. It cannot be listed as natural, appearing on labels instead as “vanilla flavored” or “artificial vanilla.” This accounts for about 85 percent of vanilla flavoring today. Most of the remainder comes from lignin. At least one company produces its artificial vanillin from genetically engineered microbes.
These artificial flavors perform very poorly as solitary flavors, which is why vanilla ice cream or yogurt often tastes bland or fake. When mixed with other flavors, as in baking, they perform somewhat better. Even vanillin derived from natural sources has less ability to do one of true vanilla’s best tricks, knitting other ingredients together, because its much lower complexity provides fewer avenues of connection. However, naturally derived vanillin is still much better than petrochemical vanillin.
Because cultivated vanilla comes from cloned plants, just a few cultivars make up the vast majority of crops. That leaves them vulnerable to pests and diseases. Caterpillars of the moth Lobesia vanillana eat the pods. Other insects and also slugs opportunistically eat the leaves. Madagascar already suffers from root rot, a fungal disease that attacks vanilla vines from the ground up. Once established, it is impossible to eradicate with current technology. Another fungal disease in the Pacific Islands, anthracnose, causes blotches on leaves and can defoliate a vine. Vanilla necrosis virus also defoliates vines until they die.
For these reasons, vanilla production is precarious. Thieves often sneak onto farms and steal the vanilla beans just before they ripen, selling them to black-market dealers. This sometimes drives farmers to harvest pods early. Unfortunately, pods picked too soon have inferior flavor and intensity compared to ripe ones. Some companies have responded by reaching out to farmers, offering protection from thieves and guaranteed contracts. This may improve the security and quality of the vanilla harvest.
Culinary Uses
Vanilla is most famous for its potential in the kitchen. If you’re going to cook with it, pay up for pure vanilla extract or a vanilla bean. Substitutes are inferior. Vanilla extract should be dark amber to brown, containing only vanilla bean and alcohol-additives such as high-fructose corn syrup just taint the flavor and make it prone to spoiling. A vanilla bean should be large, plump, dark brown to black, and slightly oily. You can make all kinds of exciting recipes with these ingredients.
Produced in commercial quantities by a handful of countries, vanilla comes in several varieties, each with its own flavor profile and ideal uses. By far the most common is Madagascar vanilla, often considered the best. It has a smooth, sweet, rummy flavor with a mellow feel and plenty of staying power. It goes well with rich foods, but people use it for all kinds of things. Mexico, the birthplace of vanilla, still produces a modest amount for export. It has a creamy base with spicy notes. Mexican vanilla pairs well with chocolate or with warm spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. Tahiti is one of the few places that uses a different type of vanilla vine, Vanilla tahitensis ‘J. W. Moore’, which has a unique flavor. Tahitian vanilla has a floral and fruity character with notes of cherry and anise. It’s popular in pastries stuffed with fruit or in other desserts, such as sorbet and fruit toppings, along with yogurt.
In recipes, vanilla acts as a culinary bridge. It connects other flavors together and enhances their positive qualities while downplaying negative ones. It adds creaminess, reduces bitterness or acidity, and rounds out sweetness. This makes it an important complement for things like caramel, chocolate, coconut, marshmallow, coffee, and strawberry. Consider some of the things you can do with it . . .
Vanilla Extract
You can make your own vanilla extract. You’ll need a glass bottle, 1 or more vanilla beans, and some high-proof alcohol. You have two options. Choose a clear, minimally flavored one like vodka or moonshine if all you want to taste is the vanilla. Choose a rich amber one like rum or brandy if you want to harmonize the flavors. Do not buy cheap, lousy alcohol; buy a decent middle grade so it tastes good. If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it. Smoky and peaty notes are a great match for the leathery notes of the shell if you’ve used the seeds for something else. If you want to release more flavor, you can slit the beans or chop them into short segments, but it’s okay to leave them whole. Put the beans in the bottle and cover completely with alcohol. Seal it tightly. Shake it twice a week. It takes about 8 weeks to mature. Store it out of direct light.
Often you can reuse the beans from this if you put them in liquid to simmer the last flavor out. Consider using them to make ice cream, or you can float one in mulled apple cider or wassail.
Vanilla Sugar
This is one way to double the bang for your buck. Stick a vanilla bean in a jar of sugar and leave it there for two weeks. Every day, gently turn and shake the jar to redistribute the sugar, so that it takes on the vanilla flavor. At the end of that time, you can take out the vanilla bean and use it for another purpose. If you wish, add a dash of cinnamon to the vanilla sugar and sprinkle over toast.
For more intense flavor, slit the pod open and mix its seeds into the sugar. In white sugar, this will leave obvious dark flecks, which not everyone likes. However, they disappear pretty well into brown sugar. Save the pod for another use.
Vanilla Ice Cream
For this recipe, you’ll need an ice cream maker.
3 cups half-and-half
½ cup white sugar
1‒2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Combine the ingredients in a large bowl, whisking gently until the sugar dissolves. Turn the ice cream maker on, pour in the batter, and then churn for about 30 minutes. Transfer to a container and store in the freezer. Makes about 3½ cups.
To make a lighter variation, replace 1 cup of half-and-half with whole milk. To make it richer, replace 1 cup of half-and-half with heavy whipping cream. If you have vanilla sugar, use that instead of plain sugar. This is great over warm pie, or you can top it with hot fudge or caramel.
Frozen Vanilla Custard
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
½ cup white sugar
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
In a medium saucepan, whisk together cream, milk, sugar, and salt. Slit the vanilla bean and squeeze the insides into the mixture. Drop the pod in too. Simmer over low heat-be careful not to let it boil.
Put the egg yolks into a medium bowl and whisk until smooth. Slowly add 1 cup of the hot cream to the egg yolks, whisking to combine. Pour the egg mixture into the hot cream, whisking gently. Simmer 5‒10 minutes until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove the vanilla pod and squeeze to remove any remaining insides; save the shell for a craft use if you wish.
Let the custard cool to room temperature, stirring frequently. Then pour it into a bowl and press plastic wrap over the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Turn an ice cream maker on and pour in the custard. Churn for about 30 minutes. Transfer to a container and store in the freezer. Makes about 3½ cups.
Try a few variations: Add any warm spices, such as cinnamon or nutmeg, for a holiday flavor. A little rum extract makes it into frozen eggnog. Or you could add apple pie spice and apple pie filling.
Medicinal Uses
Vanilla has a variety of health benefits. Chinese medicine uses the orchid to soothe coughs and lung diseases, aid stomach deficiencies, and treat problems of the kidneys and eyes. Some people find that it soothes stomachaches and other digestive problems, hence the popularity of cream soda or vanilla ice cream at such times.
The smell of vanilla eases stress and anxiety. It soothes and calms by reducing the startle reflex. This works in animals as well as humans, so it’s not purely coming from positive childhood associations. In aromatherapy, vanilla can revitalize energy and encourage happy thoughts. It is widely used in situations that require a “universally pleasant” scent.
Vanilla has antibacterial properties, making it useful in herbal medicines. It can help heal burns, cuts, and other minor wounds. Use vanilla oil in essential oil blends, or add vanilla extract to preparations with an alcohol base. It also has a high amount of antioxidants. The active ingredient vanillin promotes cardiovascular health by lowering cholesterol. It reduces inflammation too. Vanilla appears in many body care products, as it benefits the hair and skin.
Craft Uses
Vanilla has a variety of craft uses. For most of these, you will want to use vanilla extract or oil. Use vanilla to help combine other scents in potpourri. If you make holiday ornaments out of cookies, you can add an extra drop of vanilla to enhance the aroma. Sprinkle it on cinnamon sticks for crafting to add a mellow note. In perfume or essential oil blends, it adds a sweet middle note.
You can also make crafts with vanilla pods, not just fresh ones, but also ones already used to put the flavor into other products. After simmering a pod, you can dry it out. Put one vanilla pod amidst a ring of cinnamon sticks to make a decorative band around a candleholder. Chop up an empty pod to include in the stuffing for dream pillows. Vanilla powder makes a good ingredient for incense, although it has a more woodsy aroma than the usual creamy one.
A Valuable Herb
Vanilla has been used for nearly a thousand years. People have spread it around most of the tropical parts of the world, with varying degrees of success. Despite the challenges of growing it, vanilla remains a valuable herb with many important uses in cooking as well as health care and crafts. Genuine vanilla is tastier and healthier than synthetic, and it supports the livelihood of vanilla farmers. Try to find real vanilla from sustainable, fair-trade sources. It’s worth every penny.
Selected Resources
Lubinsky, Pesach, et al. “Origins and Dispersal of Cultivated Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia Jacks. [Orchidaceae]).” Economic Botany 62, no. 2 (2008): 127–38. http://plantbiology.ucr.edu/faculty/Lubinskyetal(EB08).pdf.
Martin, Laurelynn, and Byron Martin. “Growing a Vanilla Bean—The Coveted Culinary Spice.” Logee’s. Accessed February 6, 2019. https://www.logees.com/grow_vanilla.
Swift, Liya. “The Little-Known History of Vanilla.” The Chef Apprentice School of the Arts. January 20, 2015. https://www.casaschools.com/the-little-known-history-of-vanilla/#nav.
Medina, Javier De La Cruz, et al. “Vanilla: Post-Harvest Operations.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. June 6, 2009. www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/inpho/docs/Post_Harvest_Compendium_-_Vanilla.pdf.