VANILLA

After saffron and cardamom, vanilla is the world's next most luxurious spice. Growers are well-known to brand their beans with pin pricks before they are to be harvested, to recognize the owner and to avoid theft. Vanilla is an inhabitant of Mexico, where it is still cultivated commercially. Vanilla was greatly used by the Aztecs for flavoring their royal drink named xocolatl which was a blend of cocoa beans, vanilla and honey. Cortez brought in vanilla again to Europe around the sixteenth century, after having pragmatic Montezuma intaking the cocoa. It has a wide range of non-culinary uses, including scenting perfumes, cigars and liqueurs. Europeans choose to use the bean, while North Americans frequently use the extract of the bean.

Stuff called vanilla flavor actually don't contain vanilla at all, being made from eugenol commonly called as clove oil, waste paper pulp, coal tar mostly found in the tonka bean, whose use is prohibited in several countries. Ice cream manufacturers are unlikely to point out that their most well-liked flavour got its name from the Latin word "vagina". For the ancient Romans, vagina meant covering or scabbard. The Spanish people adopted the word as vaina, which urbanized a miniature form vainilla, meaning little sheath. The Spanish people made this miniature the name of the plant because its pods bears a resemblance to sheaths. Vanilla, a part of the orchid family is a rock climbing monocot possessing a fat, juicy stem, short petioled, lozenge leaves, about 20 cm in length. The inflorescence is a raceme with 20 or extra flowers. Flowers are 6 cm in length, 2.5 cm in width, either yellowish green or white in color. The fruit commonly known as beans or pod is a container, nearly cylindrical and about 20 cm in length.

For a lot of centuries, vanilla has been one of the most recognizable flavors, basic to western cuisine. Generally used to flavor desserts, beverages, milk products, and coffee. Vanilla has turned out to be one of the most loved flavors of the western penchant. It is alleged that the Totonaca people of Mexico were the initial cultivators of vanilla during the Mesoamerican time. They thought that the Gods had granted this exotic fruit to them. Vanilla continues to be grown in the eastern parts of tropical Mexico.

In the 14th century, the Spanish conquerors under Cortez, looked Montezuma, the Emperor of the Aztecs, crush vanilla beans, mix them with chocolate and gave it out as a drink in golden goblets to his mainly privileged guests. The Spanish wedged on quickly and by the core of the 15th century, it started importing vanilla to Europe to be use as a flavor in the production of chocolate. As European tourists and their attendants botanically recorded and collected and combed the forests of Central and South America, vanilla became more familiar in Europe.

Europeans followed the instance of the tribes in the New World and used vanilla in the making of medicines, as a nerve tonic and as an aphrodisiac. By the early 1800's vanilla plants were grown in botanical gardens of Germany and France. Horticulturists were researching with conditions for the plant's growth. From Europe it was elated to Reunion, Mauritius and the Malagasy Republic. In the new-fangled humid colonies, slave employment discovered that hand pollination of the flowers was essential to make vanilla beans.

From these countries, vanilla plants were brought to Indonesia, the Seychelles, and the Comoros Islands. At roughly the same time, vanilla was established as a crop in Martinique and Guadeloupe of the Caribbean islands. Today, vanilla is cultivated in Madagascar, the Comoro and Reunion Islands, India, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Mexico. Vanilla is also grown in Tahiti. The Vanilla planifolia vines grown in Tahiti is however mutated and the plants are now scientifically classified as a detached species called Vanilla tahitensis .


Vanilla and its main element called vanillin, are amongst the most well-known scented and food flavoring agent and are widely used by the food, beverage, perfumery such as candles and body oils and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Vanilla has been supplemented to yogurt and is used in nutritional supplements, meal substitute shakes and protein bars, soymilk, drinking water, custard, energy drinks, ice cream, lip salve, nonfat dry milk and sterilized frozen dairy desserts for immune-compromised patients. Vanilla is also being used as part of a weaning diet plan and is used medicinally to treat a variety of conditions by different cultures throughout the world.
Asian medicine: In Palau, vanilla is being used to take care of dysmenorrhea, fever and hysteria and to put off dental caries.
Ayurveda: Vanilla extracts are allegedly being used to help ease toothache. Secondary source suggests sinking a cotton ball in the extract and applying it over the affected tooth will slowdown tooth cavities.
Central and Southern American medicine: In Venezuela, vanilla shells have been used as an antispasmodic and to take care of fevers. In the Yucatan, vanilla extract has allegedly been used for its latent refreshment and aphrodisiac effects. In Argentina, it is being used for its latent antispasmodic, aphrodisiac and emmenagogue traits.
European medicine: Vanilla is usually used as a flavoring agent and as a sweet-smelling element in perfumes. It has been recommended that vanilla may aid to take care of dyspepsia and ulcers and possibly will have aphrodisiac and sedative effects.
Modern (Western) herbal medicine: Vanilla is supplemented to a variety of foods and beverages as a flavoring agent. It is also used in a variety of body care products and aromatherapic products for its supposed relaxant effects. According to derived sources, rubbing vanilla extract on the skin could avoid black gnats from biting and getting in to the eyes.
Veterinary medicine: In animals, aromatherapy with essential oil extracts of vanilla is being used for its sedative results.

Scientists have lately discovered that the aroma of vanilla literally fools the brain into thinking it's not hungry. At St. George's Hospital in London, 300 obese people were separated into three groups who wore either a vanilla perfumed skin patch, a lemon perfumed patch or no patch at all for four weeks. The results showed that those who wore the vanilla patch showed a enormous decrease in appetite and had 50% less cravings for chocolate and further high calorie sweets and they lost an standard of five pounds with no endeavor at all. To achieve the same results, place two drops of pure vanilla oil on a handkerchief in your purse - and sniff whenever you get a craving!