Speaker 1: I am hungry for vanilla. Let me tell you, I'm
Speaker 1: like so excited.
Speaker 2: My name is Evil Longoria and I am Myraon and.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
Speaker 1: past and present through food.
Speaker 3: On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
Speaker 3: of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages. So make yourself
Speaker 3: at home, Rachel, we just had the most ridiculously incredible
Speaker 3: day day, one of the most memorable days of my life.
Speaker 1: I have to say, right, I know and I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's because we're geeky about food. So we're north of
Speaker 1: the port of Veracruz. We're in the region of the
Speaker 1: Toa Ors in English and English, which is the original
Speaker 1: region of the vanilla plant.
Speaker 4: Yes, Pantla where we were today.
Speaker 2: That region was known as the city that perfumed the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's so romantic.
Speaker 2: The whole thing today was you're impregnated a flower.
Speaker 1: I am a proud mother father of a vanilla bean.
Speaker 1: I am pregnated an orchid. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have a little vanilla baby, vanilla baby.
Speaker 2: Mom.
Speaker 1: You know you saw me. I was It was so
Speaker 1: nerve wrecking. And we're gonna get to the process because
Speaker 1: it's a hard process. But like you guys, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't know if people understand vanilla anything vanilla, vanilla,
Speaker 1: flavor of vanilla, smell, vanilla in medicinal vanilla comes from
Speaker 1: a vanilla bean, m hm. And that bean comes from
Speaker 1: an orchid that grows on a vine. Yep.
Speaker 2: Exactly when you look at the vanilla bean, split it
Speaker 2: up and it's all these teeny tiny little seeds.
Speaker 4: So it is the most labor intensive crop. And like
Speaker 4: you said, it's a flower that grows from a vine.
Speaker 4: That's what.
Speaker 2: It's the most incredible process that I'd read about it.
Speaker 1: I read about it. I use it a lot. I
Speaker 1: always use vanilla beans. If I'm in the story, I
Speaker 1: buy a vanilla bean, and I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: noticed it, like thirty dollars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now do you understand why?
Speaker 1: Now I have such an appreciation as to why vanilla
Speaker 1: is thirty dollars. Also, I've never bought vanilla extract that
Speaker 1: is chemical. I always read the ingredients because things can
Speaker 1: say natural vanilla extract and there don't come from avian
Speaker 1: and they don't come from the land, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: natural about it.
Speaker 2: And now it's all chemicals. It's cal chemicals or caramel color.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really important to read the label and
Speaker 2: the ingredients should be vanilla and alcohol. A few years ago,
Speaker 2: I made vanilla. I got a bottle of vodka. Okay,
Speaker 2: you made vanilla extra.
Speaker 4: I made veilla extract.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, added a ton of vanilla beans. And a
Speaker 2: year later it's ready. It's the perfect gift.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, little vanilla home of.
Speaker 1: Mine, do that and give it to me. It was
Speaker 1: a perfect gift. I was like, this is a very gift.
Speaker 2: But it's just it's an incredible process. I mean to
Speaker 2: when you're at the store and there's one thing.
Speaker 4: Okay, looking at the agredients and seeing it and the vanilla.
Speaker 2: Extract and just being like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 2: thirty dollars a bean, or this is twenty five dollars
Speaker 2: a bottle.
Speaker 4: But you understand why.
Speaker 2: I mean from that bottle, if you go to the
Speaker 2: farm where we were lucky enough to be.
Speaker 1: It today, it's just un unbelievable. I want to we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about y'all. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: our day today because it was really the entire process
Speaker 1: of harvesting of vanilla bean. But first of all, I
Speaker 1: want to start with like, I don't think if people
Speaker 1: even know the vanilla plant is native to Mexico, the
Speaker 1: tot Naas.
Speaker 4: Because they were they were using it.
Speaker 1: Talk about the the toto Nach mythology about it being
Speaker 1: a princess, right, because you know, the agave of tequila
Speaker 1: has a whole methought. Oh yeah, the god way way,
Speaker 1: and so of course vanilla comes from some goddess.
Speaker 2: Of course, it just just to add to the to
Speaker 2: the romance.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So according to Totonac mythology, the vanilla orchid was born
Speaker 2: a princess who was forbidden by her father from marrying
Speaker 2: a mortal.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: So but of course she didn't pay attention to your father.
Speaker 2: So she fled with her lover that she adored, and
Speaker 2: they were captured and they were beheaded and their blood
Speaker 2: oozed out of their bodies and or headless bodies, and
Speaker 2: where the blood touched the ground is where the vines
Speaker 2: and the orchids grew.
Speaker 1: My dream for everybody who's listening to this and people
Speaker 1: who aren't, is that they make this pilgrimage to Vanilla,
Speaker 1: because you know, you go to Verracuz, you have to
Speaker 1: drive three hours north to Babuntla, which is home to
Speaker 1: the Totonacs or Totonacas, which was this thriving civilization. When
Speaker 1: you drive, we're in the job. Banana leaves everywhere, Banana
Speaker 1: trees everywhere, right.
Speaker 4: Rivers everywhere, the ocean.
Speaker 1: It's super lush, lush, lush. And it was a thriving
Speaker 1: community because of its strategic location to trade routes, but
Speaker 1: also natural resources. There's jungle, there's rain, there's sea, there's
Speaker 1: fresh water, there's i mean all the natural the mountains,
Speaker 1: all of it. Here. We went to the ruins of
Speaker 1: it at that Heen Heen, Yeah, and that was fascinating
Speaker 1: and you can tell just by those ruins what a
Speaker 1: prosperous civilization they were. I mean, it was huge, and
Speaker 1: they had a marketplace, and they had the temples, and
Speaker 1: they had the rituals, and then they had the residences
Speaker 1: and many.
Speaker 5: And very little of it has been fifty percent, how
Speaker 5: many only fifty percent, that's crazy, has been excavated, So
Speaker 5: there's way more like, oh my gosh, you know, if
Speaker 5: we only knew, but this was, you know, the people
Speaker 5: in the civilization that really discovered.
Speaker 1: Or first that we know of used vanilla.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: People, Well, they first say there were the to cultivate
Speaker 2: the vanilla.
Speaker 4: And when we were there at the Daheen yesterday at
Speaker 4: the ruins, we saw that ceremony of the men. The Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's about noon.
Speaker 6: The sun is bright and hot and very very humid
Speaker 6: here in Papantla Ladakrus.
Speaker 2: So if you could imagine, this is long pool, it's
Speaker 2: super tall, like yeah, I don't even know how many feet, but.
Speaker 1: Oh god, hundred feet yeah, uh huh.
Speaker 4: And five men. They're dressed in really bright colors or
Speaker 4: white glass, but bright red pants, and they have.
Speaker 2: All sorts of slowly colorful ribbons and ribbons on their head,
Speaker 2: ribbies on their hats.
Speaker 4: I see red and green and yellow and the blue.
Speaker 2: So one of them is at the very top playing
Speaker 2: a little drum and playing the flute, and then four
Speaker 2: of them start at the very top, and once he
Speaker 2: starts playing the music, they start spinning down like birds,
Speaker 2: like rain, but also they represent the four cardinal directions.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, here they go.
Speaker 6: You're hanging upside down, hanging from your ankles, and you're
Speaker 6: spinning round.
Speaker 7: And so this is a ceremony that's been happening since
Speaker 7: pre Hispanic times, and there is this legend that at
Speaker 7: some point the gods stopped.
Speaker 2: You know, giving people rain because people weren't paying enough
Speaker 2: attention to the gods.
Speaker 4: So they were like, okay, here's your drought.
Speaker 2: So the ceremony was created to appease the gods and
Speaker 2: bring the rain back so that the vanilla could thrive.
Speaker 1: I think clanbad. Here's the crazy thing. Vanilla vines or
Speaker 1: plants only grow within a twenty degree band on either
Speaker 1: side of the equator because of the climate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, chocolate as well, it needs to be hot. Well
Speaker 4: we know today it's hot and humid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it needs to be hot, humid, very tropical with
Speaker 2: that's why environment a great place for it as well,
Speaker 2: even though it's not native to Madagascar, it's just the climate,
Speaker 2: the climate. And then it's like, oh my gosh, like why,
Speaker 2: like what happened? You know, like what happened in Mexico.
Speaker 2: It doesn't produce, you know, it produced very little, and
Speaker 2: so I was discovering that, you know, the vanilla industry
Speaker 2: began to really take off in Madagascar in the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 2: and it was right around the time that Mexico was
Speaker 2: in turmoil, like The Mexican Revolution was nineteen ten to
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, so it was right around the time that
Speaker 2: Madagascar vanilla started to go up, right, So that's essentially
Speaker 2: the revolution was raging throughout Mexico and it was immediately
Speaker 2: followed by the oil industry, right, so vanilla's forgotten industry.
Speaker 1: It was abandoned.
Speaker 2: It was abandoned. Yeah, it was a and there are
Speaker 2: farmers and people trying to bring it back, just like
Speaker 2: it's happening with corn and beans and all of these things.
Speaker 2: I love that there are still people that care, that
Speaker 2: are wanting to keep these traditions alive.
Speaker 4: It's like you really have to take care of it
Speaker 4: to nourish the land, and just because these things just end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and it's like what it's native to
Speaker 2: this region, but most of the Mexican vanilla that we
Speaker 2: can buy in the States is not Mexican.
Speaker 4: It's not real vanilla. It's very easy to say.
Speaker 1: Natural, right, but it's just it's one of the chemicals
Speaker 1: that they were talking about today in Mexico. Like their
Speaker 1: goal here is they want to become a leader again
Speaker 1: in production of vanilla worldwide because they feel like they're
Speaker 1: the best producers of the plants native to hear but
Speaker 1: the global market, the price is dictated based on production
Speaker 1: in Madagascar, lack of production of Madagascar, overproduction in Mexico.
Speaker 1: There's just so many factors. It's just a hard crop.
Speaker 2: And now you know, Madagascar produces most of the vanilla
Speaker 2: in the world eighty percent, eighty percent of the world
Speaker 2: vanilla's produced in Madagascar.
Speaker 4: That's insane. And there's so I mean, if there's a hurricane,
Speaker 4: forget it.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. So today, what Mike then I
Speaker 1: learned was so Verta Cruz or this region of Verta
Speaker 1: Cruz isn't hurricane written. It doesn't have hurricanes. And this
Speaker 1: particular region for vanilla is up against the mountains, so
Speaker 1: they've kind of been pretty protected because of climate change.
Speaker 1: The last two years they've gotten their first hurricanes and
Speaker 1: it destroyed the vanilla plantations, a lot of them. And
Speaker 1: that is crazy to me that, you know, climate change
Speaker 1: is happening, it's real, and it affects people.
Speaker 4: It affects all of those people. The are livelihoods, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's this entire cycle and everything it revolves around
Speaker 2: the seasons and the cycles. I mean only in April
Speaker 2: and it's you know, and it's on the vine for
Speaker 2: nine months, and it's just, oh my gosh, it's so delicate.
Speaker 4: It's just so incredibly delicate.
Speaker 2: One thing that I found so interesting and when it
Speaker 2: first made its way back to Europe and there was people,
Speaker 2: you know, writing about everything that was happening that they
Speaker 2: were finding here in Mexico or.
Speaker 4: New Spain as they call it.
Speaker 2: But there's this one doctor that was sent over, doctor Francisquernandez.
Speaker 2: He was sent over in fifteen seventy. He was here
Speaker 2: for seven years to record the observations of New Spain,
Speaker 2: and he describes six hundred plants. He describes vanilla. Vanilla
Speaker 2: steeped in water causes the urine to flow admirably. Vanilla
Speaker 2: warms and strengthens the stomach, diminishes flatulent. It gives strength
Speaker 2: and vigor to the mind. Heals female trouble, and is
Speaker 2: said to protect against the bites of venomous animals. But
Speaker 2: also mixed with chocolate, it excites the venereal appetite.
Speaker 1: That is a mouthful of descriptors. Yes, that is well,
Speaker 1: so it was the first viagara.
Speaker 4: I guess. I mean you get pillow talk to this flower.
Speaker 4: It's so very interesting.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll be learning all about the
Speaker 1: mysterious origins of vanilla. I don't know it's that mysterious,
Speaker 1: but they're romantic, they're very romantic, and why European colonists
Speaker 1: were confused for centuries about how to successfully grow it.
Speaker 2: And you can listen to some of our observations at
Speaker 2: the plantation.
Speaker 4: It gets a little sexy.
Speaker 1: Sexy time, sexy time. I'm not gonna be this is
Speaker 1: not a spoiler, but somebody has sex.
Speaker 2: Well, because I've always heard this is a funny story
Speaker 2: that the woman from the farms Gaya Gaya farms, Gya farms.
Speaker 4: So this region for centuries was.
Speaker 2: The only region in the world that produced vanilla. And
Speaker 2: originally it was pollinated naturally because the flower is a hermaphrodite.
Speaker 4: It has both male and female male.
Speaker 2: And female organs that's divided by a little flat So
Speaker 2: there is a little.
Speaker 4: Bee called the Elasia bee.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a long, skinny bee that doesn't produce.
Speaker 1: Honey money, and it only function is to pollinate, to pollinate.
Speaker 2: The vanilla, and it goes into the male and then
Speaker 2: into the woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. That's all that bee does. But the
Speaker 1: bee is not around anymore.
Speaker 2: It's they're trying to bring it back, trying to bring
Speaker 2: this feedback I had already read, and this is interesting
Speaker 2: that the bee that did that was the Mellipona bee.
Speaker 2: Mellipona bee. And I asked, and she was so funny.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, the many bona, she said, she's Mossa.
Speaker 2: She's like the little cheese massa.
Speaker 4: Be the little gossip by.
Speaker 2: Bee that's like checking you out and seeing if you're pregnant,
Speaker 2: Like what's happening.
Speaker 4: She's like the nosy neighbor that goes away.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't the vollinator.
Speaker 4: She has a vollinator.
Speaker 1: She's just a nosy bee that wanted to see what
Speaker 1: was happening. Yes, but it's the.
Speaker 2: Other one, the quiet, hard working bee that doesn't get
Speaker 2: the credit.
Speaker 4: That it doesn't get the credit because it's the cheese mosa.
Speaker 1: That loud one. She said, she's even Mazurita. She's even
Speaker 1: a little fatter.
Speaker 4: This is so funny. Oh, the Gorrita one.
Speaker 2: Because the band that we have today was the Vanilla Planetforma.
Speaker 2: But then there's another hype of orget that's the bobona
Speaker 2: that's a little bit bigger.
Speaker 4: And the bee that's also.
Speaker 2: Native to this region region, and the bee that pollinates
Speaker 2: the bonbona is the same type of beat, but she's
Speaker 2: a little more chubby, and she's just she's like the hardworking,
Speaker 2: she's very efficient.
Speaker 4: She's like a little god to beat that.
Speaker 2: She was so funny the way she said, she's your
Speaker 2: little little hardworking she's quiet, she does her job.
Speaker 1: She pollinates, it leaps. Oh my gosh. But now, and
Speaker 1: this is the most fascinating thing to me, is that
Speaker 1: so because vanilla was native is native, was native to Mexico.
Speaker 1: When the Spaniards came and took it back to Europe,
Speaker 1: it made its way down into Madagascar, which is now
Speaker 1: today the number one producer of vanilla. But they realized
Speaker 1: they didn't have the bees to pollinate it. So how
Speaker 1: did they how did they plant it? How did they
Speaker 1: reproduce it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a crazy story because from Spain, like you said,
Speaker 2: it came for the concourse and it was so important here,
Speaker 2: I mean so important, I mean as important as you
Speaker 2: know you could say corn chocolate and vanilla nola, right,
Speaker 2: And vanilla was used to season their chocolate drinks and
Speaker 2: it was all uses to incense for their temples and
Speaker 2: sometimes they would mix it with gobald to, you know,
Speaker 2: for their.
Speaker 4: So it was very very important.
Speaker 1: Was it was very regal spice because it's so hard,
Speaker 1: such little productions, and it takes a year. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's only one harvest a year. So it was very special,
Speaker 1: very special.
Speaker 2: So eventually from Spain, it made its way all over Europe,
Speaker 2: made its way to France, and the French conquered you know, Africa, Africa,
Speaker 2: so they brought it over.
Speaker 4: In the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: But it was growing because it's a beautiful flower, it's
Speaker 2: a vine, but it wasn't producing any being beans because
Speaker 2: it wasn't being pollinated.
Speaker 4: It was just like there, but it wasn't doing what
Speaker 4: they wanted it to do. So the person that figure
Speaker 4: out the way to hand pollinate the.
Speaker 1: Vanilla because they don't have natural pollinators.
Speaker 2: Because those little bees are only in this country, only
Speaker 2: in Mexico, only in Mexicanos.
Speaker 1: Never they can have in Madagascar.
Speaker 4: No, they could never.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So was a young a twelve year old enslaved boy.
Speaker 4: Named Edmund Lbs.
Speaker 2: And this twelve year old child kickstarted a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well he's the one that figured out that
Speaker 1: he used a little stick to carefully join the male
Speaker 1: and female parts of the flower together, and today the
Speaker 1: method is still known as le Edmond Edmund's gesture.
Speaker 4: Oh Edmund's gesture. Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's the poet, it's named after him.
Speaker 2: It makes you think this is a twelve year old
Speaker 2: child who was clearly brilliant. Had he had the opportunity,
Speaker 2: he would have ruled the world. Rule the world, ruled
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because of well you know again, I think you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about sugar coffee. Like, there are certain crops
Speaker 1: that lend itself to slavery, and vanilla was one of
Speaker 1: them back in the day because it takes almost three
Speaker 1: years for a vanilla orchard to balloom. Takes three years
Speaker 1: for the buyers to have a one flower, one flower,
Speaker 1: three years before it begins producing flowers, and then when
Speaker 1: the orchids finally form, the farmers have to observe them.
Speaker 4: Really carefully and have to work quickly when.
Speaker 1: The flower bud opens, right, and it's only in the
Speaker 1: late morning, and a single pollinated flower will only produce
Speaker 1: a single vanilla bean.
Speaker 4: It's crazy, it's crazy. Yeah, and of course you know
Speaker 4: they needed a lot of labor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that, yeah.
Speaker 4: It requires labor.
Speaker 1: The other thing I want so I want to go
Speaker 1: back and say, was how to do that? How to
Speaker 1: hand pollinate it? That's crazy, because but what I did today.
Speaker 4: You were nervous. You were so sweating.
Speaker 1: I was sweating.
Speaker 4: I've shaken.
Speaker 1: I think I needed my glasses because let me tell you,
Speaker 1: there's one month that the orchid blooms and we're here.
Speaker 1: How crazy that we were here for the pollinating I
Speaker 1: mean for the blooming's And not only does it bloom
Speaker 1: only in the month, it booms only two hours a day.
Speaker 4: And if it's not pollinated, it.
Speaker 1: Dies, and it dies, it dies, So you missed the
Speaker 1: whole year, Like your whole harvest is ruined if you
Speaker 1: do not. And there's how many buds, I mean thousands,
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands and thousands of these little orchid buds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they all open at different times, So this one
Speaker 1: might open today, five might open tomorrow. So these vanilla
Speaker 1: producers go every day in the morning because that's when
Speaker 1: it opens. If it opens that day, and you have
Speaker 1: to find one of the orchids that it's open you
Speaker 1: cut it open on the side. I had to slice
Speaker 1: open the orchid, open up to the sexual organs. Is
Speaker 1: that what you call the plant? Yeah? My only plant reproduction,
Speaker 1: like knowledge is by grease too, not grease grease too.
Speaker 1: Reproduction re production.
Speaker 4: But you're following tube to work.
Speaker 1: That's what I did today. So you did. Okay.
Speaker 4: So I'm here with Eva. We're we're in a vanilla field.
Speaker 1: We just have to describe what we're seeing. First of all,
Speaker 1: this is the most peaceful greenhouse I've ever been in.
Speaker 6: It's so beautiful and it's it's it's amazing. It's a
Speaker 6: little bit of cloudy today. Yeah, and you could hear.
Speaker 1: The birds, which she says affects whether they open or not.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's right, I heard her say that, So it
Speaker 6: doesn't they don't really, So there's not a lot open today,
Speaker 6: right because it's such a cloudy because it's do cloudy.
Speaker 1: They need the sun.
Speaker 6: But it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's this like orchids orchid.
Speaker 6: It's this yellow orchid with these and these thick green vine.
Speaker 1: They look like succulents.
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 4: They're really thick, really really thick leaves. Yeah, they're really thick.
Speaker 6: Leaves, and yes, this flower, one flour produces one being being.
Speaker 1: I just pollinated it. I just impregnated the bean with
Speaker 1: this little stick. It's a little wooden stick just for
Speaker 1: you guys to get a feeling of where we are.
Speaker 1: This is. This is a very.
Speaker 6: Small production here organic.
Speaker 1: She doesn't use any chemicals, and there are people that
Speaker 1: do this process one orchid at a time, and so
Speaker 1: with this little stick. I was very stressed by the way.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even breathing, but really really fascinating how it's
Speaker 1: made and it's endemic to this region.
Speaker 6: And it's endemic to this region in Vera Cruz, the
Speaker 6: land of Vanilla. Yeah, amazing, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I want this plant in my home.
Speaker 6: So how did you impregnate it?
Speaker 1: We have to slice it open, and that's the male
Speaker 1: organ right here and the females underneath it. So you
Speaker 1: scrape it and smash it down. We'll not smash It's
Speaker 1: very delicate.
Speaker 6: You have to be delicate like.
Speaker 1: A woman, and is nine months nine months for this baby.
Speaker 4: That is amazing to me.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine doing that at thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: times in one harvest.
Speaker 4: No, well, you said, can I have a glass of wine, like, oh.
Speaker 1: Did I just have sex? Did we all just have sex?
Speaker 4: I'll just experience this together. Concentrations.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was crazy to think I did one.
Speaker 1: I mean how many they have to do a day
Speaker 1: within a month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and each one, each flower produces one vanilla bean
Speaker 2: and in nine it ripens in nine months, right, and
Speaker 2: then they pick the bean and then it's a whole other,
Speaker 2: like process, a whole other, like one hundred.
Speaker 4: Days to get the vanilla bean that we buy at
Speaker 4: the store.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere hungry for history will be right back.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you love vanilla. I what do you
Speaker 4: make with vanilla? Do you everything? Bake with it?
Speaker 1: Do you everything? My famous cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving is
Speaker 1: made with vanilla bean. Like you have to cut two
Speaker 1: vanilla beans. You have to scoop out the beans, you
Speaker 1: put it in and then you throw the two beans
Speaker 1: in there. It's my poached pair cranberry sauce. So it's
Speaker 1: like poached pears in this cranberry sauce of citrus and vanilla.
Speaker 4: That sounds delicious.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's amazing. It's in my cookbook. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing I make vanilla bean ice cream. And that's
Speaker 1: my favorite thing because you see all the little seeds
Speaker 1: against the white. I don't get vanilla ice cream. I
Speaker 1: get vanilla bean ice cream. Yeah, and a little goes
Speaker 1: a long way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're vanilla there. Today I had a moment with
Speaker 2: this vanilla. I got a little emotion with.
Speaker 1: The ice cream.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My dad used to like Hoggan does vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 4: That was like his thing.
Speaker 2: Every day after every meal, he had to have a
Speaker 2: scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 4: And I was just standing there outside. Was it vanilla
Speaker 4: bean ice cream? It was vanilla? It was there vanilla
Speaker 4: bean ice cream?
Speaker 2: Or was the one that my dad he liked any
Speaker 2: cri but yeah, vanilla bean, yeah, especially and he used
Speaker 2: to make ice cream all the time. But yeah, just
Speaker 2: looking at it and just being out with the birds
Speaker 2: and the heat and there's the moment and just eating this,
Speaker 2: I was like a little bit like I had to
Speaker 2: walk away.
Speaker 4: I was just like, oh my god, this is just
Speaker 4: this is life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so and it's amazing how a flavor
Speaker 2: could just trigger so many emotions, so many memories, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, I love vanilla. Just whenever I use the
Speaker 2: vanilla bean. I always stick the I used, you know,
Speaker 2: the seeds.
Speaker 4: I put it in my sugar. So my sugar every
Speaker 4: time I open up my sugar smells like vanilla.
Speaker 1: What I'm gonna do that?
Speaker 4: I just start doing.
Speaker 1: It is such a great idea, you just put it
Speaker 1: in there. I usually cook with the vanilla bean. What
Speaker 1: do you use vanilla for? What do you cook it for?
Speaker 4: You know what I love to make.
Speaker 2: I love to make medalanes, French medalanes. I make a
Speaker 2: brown butter with the vanilla bean with the seeds. And
Speaker 2: I love to make ice cream as well. And I
Speaker 2: love to make flan, vanilla fla vanilla flan with the
Speaker 2: vanilla seeds.
Speaker 4: Those are the main things I do with me. Nola,
Speaker 4: the flam the ice cream.
Speaker 1: Well, what recipe did we learn today? I was like,
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound good. I don't know about this was
Speaker 1: vanilla cream chicken. Oh my gosh, And let me tell y'all,
Speaker 1: I'm making that the minute I get back home.
Speaker 4: It was delicious.
Speaker 2: It was delicious because it had like twelve sticks of butter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, helps, But it wasn't sweet because you, like you said,
Speaker 1: vanilla is not sweet. Vanilla is vanilla Yeah, vanilla's bitter.
Speaker 1: It's its own thing, its own thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you guys, we had this creamy chicken which was
Speaker 8: basically like any cream based broth because it was heavy cream.
Speaker 1: Here they used natha, which is the fat of milk. Right,
Speaker 1: so I think we can substitute with heavy cream.
Speaker 4: I think we can subst to do with heavy cream.
Speaker 4: I don't know if crumb Fresh would be too heavy. No, no,
Speaker 4: I think it would be heavy.
Speaker 1: But it does have a crim fresh feel in the
Speaker 1: sense of crim fresh isn't sweet. It's a little tart,
Speaker 1: but not that isn't tart, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Crumbfresh is tart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: I would probably use heavy cream maybe like she used cream.
Speaker 4: She used cream, She.
Speaker 1: Used cream, and oh no, wonder it was so good,
Speaker 1: So what what the fat? Could we substitute it with?
Speaker 4: Maybe a little crumb fresh or a little ricatta?
Speaker 1: Ricotta?
Speaker 2: Ricotta, it's ricotta. It's the ricotta, yeah, because it's very mild. Yes,
Speaker 2: but it's cream like we don't have in La. We
Speaker 2: don't have nata in La, but ricotta rikatta.
Speaker 1: It is exactly ricotta. So heavy cream ricotta, sawtate on
Speaker 1: and butter. You pour that and vanilla bean and you
Speaker 1: put that in a blender and you cook it with
Speaker 1: the chicken and it just comes out wow, amazing. But
Speaker 1: then the tortillas is like the Pieta resistant vaniadas, which
Speaker 1: were vanilla in chiladas.
Speaker 2: It's like an enchila, but instead of it putting in chile. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she put it in the cream and the vania. So
Speaker 2: the n viniadas, and it was their family recipe.
Speaker 1: It was so generations old. Yeah. It was so down
Speaker 1: good and topped with vanilla powder. Yeah, vanilla powder, which
Speaker 1: I've never seen. Yeah, I mean they sell that at
Speaker 1: the STO. Yeah, I haven't seen it, only seen extract
Speaker 1: and bean and the beans.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they do have it, and they have the paste.
Speaker 4: I've seen it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh my gosh. It was so good. And then
Speaker 1: we had platanos plantains in a vanilla liqueur flambei for
Speaker 1: dessert with vanilla bean ice cream on top. So the
Speaker 1: vanilla bean ice cream just melted on top of these
Speaker 1: vanilla la cour plant It was the best meal, the
Speaker 1: best ever.
Speaker 4: I'm never gonna forget today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I swear like seeing vanilla has been like a
Speaker 2: lifelong dream.
Speaker 1: Oh I know, me too.
Speaker 2: And today it was like what a memorable experience, like
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime, everybody has to come see vanilla.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you can, Yes, I would encourage buying Mexican
Speaker 1: vanilla just because I'm Mexican.
Speaker 4: Yes, and to support to support our people's.
Speaker 1: What are peoples, but also it's it's endemic to this country, to.
Speaker 4: This country, and they're trying to bring it back.
Speaker 1: They're trying to bring it back. Yeah. Okay, well you
Speaker 1: know what we should do, y'all. We're going to post
Speaker 1: this recipe. Yes, we our version of.
Speaker 4: It, our version of it. We'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: We'll figure it out, we'll test it, and we're going
Speaker 1: to post it for you guys. But until then, I
Speaker 1: hope you have a vanilla latte. I hope you have
Speaker 1: a vanilla ice cream. I hope you have a vanilla
Speaker 1: dreams dreams. When people go, oh, it's so, that's the
Speaker 1: worst metaphor for boring, because there's nothing boring about vanilla.
Speaker 2: On the contrary, vanilla is so incredibly complex and exciting.
Speaker 2: It has just stories and stories and layers and layers,
Speaker 2: and it's so yeah, history hungry for history. Wow.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening everyone, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership
Speaker 1: with Iheart'smichaultura podcast network.
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