In Mexico, I once journeyed through the mountains of Oaxaca which lead down onto the humid plains of Veracruz. Here, long before such things were written down, men first transported the wild vanilla plants they had plucked from the dense forests of south eastern Mexico. To the north and west lie Cordoba and Jalapa on the ancient trade routes to Tenochtitlan. Beyond those cities is Papantla, in the land of the Totonac. East, and south, the band of moist forest feeds directly into the jungles of Chiapas, and down through Guatemala and along the isthmus of Central America towards Costa Rica. From their home in southern Mexico the plants were distributed all along this route, wild vanilla tended and tamed by the people who valued its precious scent.
For days I travelled through the countryside, passing forgotten villages in lonely valleys, and lumber camps shaded by tall trees. Crossing the high Sierra Juarez, the barrier between Oaxaca City and the Gulf coast, I camped in forests of pine and oak and in the bright clean mornings there were tufted eagles above the steep slopes. Eleven thousand feet up I stood at La Cumbre, the highest point in the mountain range and saw the track of the Camino Real, the ancient route from Oaxaca City to Vera Cruz. Thousands of years before the Spanish came to Mexico, men from the Pacific Coast travelled this way to trade with the people of the Gulf Coast. Withered spindle pines stood up like totems against an endless sky and there was neither sight nor sound of man.
Leaving the cool high ground for the coastal plain I warmed myself with frijoles de olla and tlayuda—steaming black beans and lightly toasted tortillas. They were made on an open fire by Tia Aquino, an eighty-year old woman who provided meals for anyone passing through. She told me she had twelve children, but she and Fidel, her husband of fifty-eight years, had lost count of exactly how many grandchildren they now had. Afterwards, in a tiny tin-roofed hut at the foot of the mountains I came to a village with women roasting cocoa beans carried from Chiapas. The hut had no electricity supply and they were making chocolate as part of a co-operative to generate an income for their community. In the hot room, a rich scent filled my lungs as I watched them grinding the cocoa beans by hand and mixing the powder with sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. They churned the mixture as it warmed with long-handled wooden spoons over a charcoal griddle. To cool the chocolate they spread it out on a table covered in ceramic tiles, patting it and squeezing it into thin rectangular blocks, or sometimes into thick cylinders which they cut into slices that ended up as rich brown discs like oversized chocolate coins.
Years later, in an English country kitchen, the bean lies on the cutting board, a sliver of rippled darkness against the pale wood. Chef picks it up and slips the point of a sharp knife into the flesh near one end. It is moist but firm, and the knife moves smoothly from right to left splitting the pod in two. The two halves of the fruit’s outer flesh are still attached to each other at the tip, like an ultra-slim banana peeled back to its base. He turns the knife, angling it away from his fingers and pressing down against the lower flap of the bean, pushing the edge of the steel along its length to scour out the moist seeds. He takes another bean from the box and begins again.
There is milk and cream warming in the pan. Twelve fresh golden egg yolks glisten in a bowl. He adds sugar to the eggs and whisks them rapidly until the mix lightens, not quite white. The pan comes off the flame and he scrapes the gleaming black treasure into the mixture, along with the eviscerated pods. They are limp. Now the eggs and sugar join the liquid. Back to the heat it goes and he begins to stir, stopping the sugar from catching on the base of the pan. Now and then the beans appear, like logs in a flood, dark flecks of seed and flesh speckling the swirling yellow flow. After a short time it thickens and he pours the mixture through a sieve into a white bowl. Two dark whole coffee beans are dropped into the liquid, along with the spent pods. Now, he covers it close so that a skin will not form, and places the bowl in the fridge to steep and cool. Tomorrow, when the flavour is full, it will be turned into ice cream.
Chef hands me the spoon to taste. He cannot know what he offers. There, is the story of a Mexican orchid, and the scent of an Indian Ocean island.