THE STORY OF VANILLA
Writer and editor DIANNE STEWART explores the almost supernatural ability that smell has to trigger memories, in the context of her personal history with the rich and evocative scent of vanilla.
When I was a child, my summer holidays were usually spent with my paternal grandparents in East London, and my thoughts often return nostalgically to the time I spent with them. To this day, the smell of vanilla reminds me of my grandmother – very much in line with the cogent observation by Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov: “Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.” I always associate the smell of vanilla with my late grandmother. A short, feisty and artistic woman, my gran was not only an accomplished seamstress, but also an avid baker. How I long for a slice of her moist sandwich cake, with fork patterns in the vanilla icing and glacé cherries on top… As a young child, I used to watch her make it, creaming eggs and sugar in a beige Mason Cash mixing bowl, originally from England. Using just her own muscle power, my gran beat the cake mixture not with an electric KitchenAid, but with a wooden spoon. Standing on tiptoes to peer into the bowl, I watched clouds of sifted flour fall into the batter, and teaspoons of baking powder being carefully measured out in an era long before self-raising flour.
Years later, as an adult, on holiday in Grand Baie in Mauritius, I encountered vanilla teabags for the first time. They were made by local company Bois Cheri, and even the cardboard box containing them emitted the scent of vanilla, causing – as always – all those memories of my grandmother to come flooding back. Standing there as the steam from the tea released the rich aroma, I was instantly transported to endless games of general knowledge at my grandparents’ home, to our visits to the aquarium to see the penguins, and to special treats at a nearby ice-cream parlour, where we indulged in vanilla (of course) cones.
Vanilla orchids, which produce vanilla pods, are pollinated by a single type of bee – from the genus Melipona – which is indigenous to Mexico’s tropical jungles. So in Mauritius (as is done everywhere else in the world other than Mexico), every vanilla plant has to be hand-pollinated, and the precious pods hand-harvested. Nearby Madagascar leads the world’s production of vanilla, with an annual output of 3 000 tonnes.
The vanilla vines grown on Madagascar and Mauritius, and in most other vanilla-producing areas, are the perennial Vanilla planifolia, colloquially known as Bourbon Vanilla on Mauritius. It takes a full three years for a vine to fruit after planting, and flavourist Michael Zampino says, “To make good vanilla, you need the seed pod to be on the vine for eight to nine months.”
Farmers of vanilla have to keep a close and constant vigil over their orchid vines, waiting for the precise moment when flowers appear, because there is just a small window of opportunity every season in which to pollinate the orchid flower by hand, or it will not produce the desired crop of vanilla pods. Many farmers have been known to sleep beside their vines at this time.
The story of vanilla – its crisscrossing of the globe, and the endlessly difficult and labour-intensive business of farming it – is tied into its longtime desirability as a spice. And for me, that history is personal, because its aroma so instantly and strongly pulls me back to childhood, and those holidays that form a memory bank and bulwark of positive experiences.