Healthy foods - Vanilla History

Vanilla bean cafe: Vanilla was first discovered in Mexico by the Spanish conquistadors, who had dubbed it vainilla meaning "a very little sheath.” They had brought it to Europe, where it was very quickly adopted. The first ever written mention of the vanilla beans was in the year of 1662, in general reference to an ingredient that is used with the chocolate by the Native Americans. ‘

By the end of the 19th century, the great innovation of ice cream had created a love affair with vanilla flavor.

Vanilla beans were once greatly prized as very highly effective aphrodisiacs. They were so very rare; they were generally used as a great tribute payment to the royalty.

Vanilla is only the fruit of an orchid plant, which normally grows in the form of a bean pod. Vanilla orchids are fully grown up only in tropic climates. The dark brown vanilla bean is usually around 7 to 9 inches long, weighs about only 5 grams each, and yields about just 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla seeds. One-quarter teaspoon should be sufficiently enough to flavor a whole recipe for say 4 to 5 people. Vanilla is used not only in edible desserts, pastries and baked food goods, but is also very excellent with many sea foods. It is a very popular ingredient of perfumes, coffees, pipe tobaccos and cigars.

Botanical Name: Vanilla tahitensis (less flavorful), Vanilla planifolia, and several other names: Vainilla meaning little sheath, Vanillin, vaniglia, vanilla, vanilka, wanila, vanilja, vanilje, vanillia, vanil, vanile, paneli, vanilya

Vanilla Availability Criteria: Dried vanilla bean pods and some bottled vanilla extract is also available full year-round in the spice section of all the supermarkets. Vanilla beans may be kept in locked up (just like the saffron) in some of the markets just because of their very high value. If you don't even see any on the store shelf, ask the store manager.

Vanilla Selection: For vanilla beans, choose a plump bean with a very thin skin to get the most seeds that is possible. Pods should be totally dark brown, almost full black in color, and also pliable enough to wrap all around your finger without ever breaking. For pure vanilla extracts, look for a very high alcohol content in those unadulterated pure vanilla extracts. Synthetics usually have a very little or absolutely no alcohol at all. FDA standards also require vanilla extract must generally contain around 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon during its extraction and approximately 35 percentage of alcohol.

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