vanilla doesn’t mean plain, it means more someone like: original, unaltered
That’s because 90% of things with “vanilla flavour” just have vanillin in it and that’s it, while real vanilla has other stuff alongside vanillin in it which makes the flavour different, just try to eat stuff with fake vanilla and then eat stuff with real vanilla, you will notice a big difference
Missionary is the vanilla of sex. And I mean that in the best way.
I believe the cultivation of the vanilla orchid is a milestone on the cultural definition of everything sweet (in addition to invention of corn syrup).
This is a vanilla meme.
the problem with vanilla, is that we dont have its definitive natural, and vanilla orchid is pretty hard to cultivate too. it gets complicated when you are trying to find out the origin of vanllia in s america, and the original pollinator. i think people still do it by HAND.
its because like most orchids, it prevents self-fertilization through its flower structure, and requires by hand, which is cumbersome and tedious. vanilla is pretty hard to cultivate.
I’m convinced that “vanilla” meaning “plain/no flavor” is because the makers of vanilla ice cream cut down on the amount being used so much that people associated it with flavorlessness.
An early shrinkflation.
Yup. Intense, proper, yellow vanilla is delicious
Whoever’s had this knows what I mean
As someone who gets issues with Chocolate. Vanilla has always been my go to. Finding good Vanilla ice cream is amazing. Having bad Vanilla ice cream though is so bad. Binging with Babish did a taste test of all Vanilla ice cream he could get his hands on. Benjerry had the best bang for your buck and is dam good but if you want the real good stuff Mcconnell makes you see what you have been missing in your life.
Yeah but bad chocolate is also trash, so this isn’t a question of which ingredient is better but a question of quality.
The best ice cream I ever had was vanilla, and it was home made by a crazy person.
Cheap vanillin flavouring lacks all dimensions of vanilla, so it is indeed “plain”
I understand it as not plain, but the normal. The go to. The first choice.
Lots of things taste like vanilla, but that generic vanilla taste is as authentic as the generic banana taste. Real vanilla tastes very different from the chemical imitation that you find in every cheap dairy product. The “plain” in this story is refering to that fake vanilla. Real vanilla is still very much rare, expensive and exceptional.
Edit: fun fact, the fake banana taste is actually based off of the “gris michel” banana. This specific banana cultivar was THE generic banana you could buy in every grocery store. Until the 1950’s when almost the whole species went extinct due to a decease. The “panama disease”. Heavy monoculture farming made the banana industry extremely suseptible. Within a few years, all major farms were destroyed. Now we have a different banana cultuvar, the “Cavendish”. This banana is not susceptible to the panama disease,but variations of the panama disease are allready showing up around the world.
Edit: fun fact, the fake banana taste is actually based off of the “gris michel” banana.
The real reason artificial banana flavoring tastes so jarring isn’t because food scientists modeled it on a lost fruit from a century ago. It comes down to a classic case of isolated organic chemistry vs. complex natural agriculture, a phenomenon known in statistical science as the “n=1” problem, and a single volatile molecule called isoamyl acetate.
Theres also the secret third vanilla flavour, beaver butt stink.
Actually, the “fake” vanilla aroma is chemically identical to the main aroma of real vanilla. So you really can’t say that it’s as authentic as banana aroma, as that is only similar to real banana. Now real vanilla does taste different, because it has a lot of other components creating a much more complex taste profile.
Yeah, I was about to ask who hasn’t had both? Like, I’ve eaten, cooked and baked with real and fake vanilla and they’re almost identical. I prefer vanilla extract over other options and I don’t really care how much real vanilla is in it.
If you’re cooking it, I agree, it’s practically identical. When just mixed or raw, they’re fairly different. Obviously the primary smell/taste is still vanillin, but there’s a lot more to it that is mostly lost when cooking.
since all the plantations are clones of the same banana its just a matter of time until we lose the banan
For what it’s worth, it probably won’t go extinct. Even if there wasn’t a more resistant cultivar, they’d probably just get really expensive. It’s still possible to get gros michael and others, just not as easily or for less than $1 USD unless the buyer lives near a plantation.
So this sent me down a rabbit hole and it turns out they’re basically not available in the UK full stop as a fresh fruit, even via the European importer I found thanks to Brexit. I can import it dried, or otherwise I have to make a long weekend of it in France to try it!
Still, it’s cool that you can do that. Seems crazy to lock down imports like that.
Wasn’t that whole gros michel story made up after the fact? Those bananas are still available, just more expensive. People who’ve eaten them have reported them tasting a bit more like the chemical banana taste, but not really the same. And the taste is highly dependent on how ripe the banana is. I think the actual story was the chemical banana was close enough and cheap and easy to produce. People also liked it, even though it didn’t really taste like bananas. So it became the de facto banana taste. In small amounts the taste is a lot closer, but people prefer the higher amounts because of the more intense taste.
It even says as much on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel#%3A~%3Atext=The+Gros+Michel+has+a%2Cseeming+version+of+the+Cavendish
A food history myth is that artificial banana flavor was specifically developed from the Gros Michel, but isoamyl acetate is a simple compound and was not based on any specific cultivar.
And the taste is highly dependent on how ripe the banana
Just like with every banana cultivar
It’s all a little fuzzy but essentially the Gros Michel was THE cultivar of banana, but it became susceptible to a disease. It still exists, but can’t be farmed like it used to be.
The chemical was developed and likened to the Gros Michel variety in mind for it being called ‘banana’ flavor since the Cavendish (i think?) hadn’t yet replaced the world market as the banana cultivar of choice.
I think it might be more that the industrialization of agriculture made rare flavors far more commonplace.
Even real vanilla isn’t all that expensive or hard to come by anymore. Virtually every grocery store has it in quantities that will suffice for anything but full on commercial needs.
So it has become a default flavor, exactly because it is both cheap to acquire and popular to consume. Not unlike chocolate (which, I might argue, is more vanilla than even mediocre quality vanilla).
I’m growing my vanila orchid! 2 years in, just 8 years to go!
I’ve read it’s really hard to get them to flower and go to seed indoors. Godspeed!
It doesn’t help that “vanilla” flavored products usually use a tiny drop of artificial vanillin.
Real vanilla has a much richer amazing taste. But even the artificial stuff would be ok if they just put more of it. That shit is cheap, pour it in dammit.
Exactly. I make my own ice cream at home. Vanilla is my go to. It’s amazing.
What ingredients do you use? And do you do all that manual stirring?
It’s the finest of the flavors.
https://youtu.be/fC_q9KPczAg?t=40
I too think that vanilla is the finest of the flavours.
I’m so into vanilla it’s crazy. Seriously. Practically any dessert.
Vanilla is my favorite smell. Back in college when my buddy went to Mexico and brought back cup souvenirs for friends, he didn’t get one for me. Instead he gave me a big bottle of fancy vanilla. I kept that thing at my computer desk and every so often for the next couple years I’d pop it open and take a big rip of the smell just to feel a little more alive. It was so great.
