Everyday Treasures/Alltägliche Schätze/Jokapäiväiset Aarteet - Vanilla (Vanilla)
- Edi Wipf
- Jan 8, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 10, 2020
From the moments you first wake and rise, to your summons to slumber met behind closed eyelids, what do you seek in the space of a day?
Is it ever, or always - or never, perhaps - a certain treasuring of what does unfold?
Like reverently earmarking the page of a passage to keep ties with how it echoes ~
Focus sharpened on a pivot of time,
to meet
a flicker, snare, spark -
Novel unearthings, deeper groundings
When connections abound, alight, delight <--- is that (not?) what we are all in quest of?
I ask,
hoping to better find you,
puzzling over scripts, chronicles, memories, recipes -
holding experience close
As if, maybe, there is some foundation,
elementary material,
essential ingredients
that have given
and will give
the way, shared with you
From where I am at:
Though something that can be used as a label for bland/lackluster, vanilla can build remarkable bridges to what is tender, dear, cherished
I have found, at least:
Whenever graced by its aroma - its notes of a certain mystery and nostaliga - vanilla's warm embrace brings joy to shimmer out across landscapes of my skin and stirs a deeper remembrance from within. Such sensation then dims into an enveloping darkness, like the rich amber of its essence, leaving reverberations in their wake, in this space of the present;
Sonorous, open, emboldened
No longer quite so caught in the search -
Rather, I find,
I am
Here,
in the encountering
Maybe that sounds curious; have I lost you? We can further explore vanilla together.
Vanilla is both the commonly used name, as well as the genus name, that front lines approximately 110 species and is a lovely group within one of the largest, most diverse flowering plant families: orchids (Orchidaceae).
Home Range:
Residing in tropical and subtropical forests between 0 to 1000 meters (3289 feet) in elevation, vanilla predominantly grows in Central America, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, West Africa, and isles of the Indian Ocean. Tropical America is home to a majority of its species (52).
Hallmarks:
🜁 The birth of the Vanilla genus can be traced as far back as 65 million years ago, around the time of Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs
🜁 Lives as an evergreen vine, where it first establishes itself on the ground and than begins a great climb up another plant (also termed a hemi-epiphytic lifestyle) - clinging with its fleshy roots, gathering moisture and nutrients from the surrounding air and water along its way; can reach lengths up to 91 meters (300 feet) this way
🜁 While the majority of plants start off as stem cuttings (reproducing vegetatively), sexual reproduction does take place (and is critical for the making of vanilla spice~)
🜁 Fashions thick, flat, wide blade-shaped leaves that are ~10 to 15 centimeters (4 to 6 inches) long, alternately arranged
🜁 Once surpassing the age of 3 years old (up to 5 for some) and being at least ~ 3 meters (10 feet) in length, plants unveil intricate, pale green-yellow flowers with fluted lips that are perfect (! here also meaning that each flower has both male and female reproductive structures) and can be up to ~10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter
🜁 These blooms will only last for 24-hours once fully opened, and if not pollinated, the flower perishes and falls away; if pollination does take place, however, a prized pod begins to develop. This fruit will ripen over the course of ~6 to 9 months and hit lengths of 15 to 25 centimeters (6 to 10 inches)
🜁 Only 35 of the species are known to produce a beautiful fragrance; aromatically esteemed
Interrelationships:
Seeds are thinly covered by a sheen of oil, which make them sticky and can aid in their journey away from the vine that set this miracle of life in motion (dispersal). As the enclosed embryos wake from stasis to germinate, they are likely wholly dependent on fungi whose regular haunts are around roots and seek to serve the seed necessary nutrients right where it is at; an exchange now that will be met later with some of a growing plant's greatest treasures: energy from the sun transmuted into sugars.
As a way to protect such valuables and minimize predation, the sap flowing through stems contains hazardous calcium oxalate, and the moderate to severe dermatitis it can cause is a considerable factor of concern when taking cuttings or harvesting ripe vanilla pods. Despite this defense feature, vanilla still endures attacks by various fungi (aggressors such as Fusarium oxysporum and certain Puccinia species) and the moth Lobesia vanillana, as well as several bugs, beetles, dwarf cicadas, and snails.
When vanilla looses immature buds, nectar is sometimes produced at the site, and ants have been observed taking in the sugary offerings arising from the wound. Though some orchid-ant interactions include ants protecting plants from herbivores, attracting bird pollinators, and aiding in the passage of seeds to new locations, it is unknown if this beneficial relationship is formed between ant and vanilla in particular.
Non-Human pollinators of vanilla’s blooms are rare and are thought to only include social bees (including those in the tribe Euglossini, such as Euglossa viridisima) and, according to some accounts, hummingbirds living in South and Central America. As vanilla flowers produce little to no nectar, pollinators might instead be incentivized with oil and floral fragrances, which can be used lavishly in courtship displays, as well as precursors for the sex pheromones of bees.
The first people to cultivate Vanilla planifolia are the Totonac of Papantla in North Central Mexico; they coincidently are also the first native group the Spanish met when invading Central America. By 1519, vanilla had traveled to Europe, and it was allegedly smuggled from France to Réunion Island in 1822. It was there, in 1841, that Edmond Albius, a black, enslaved child, discovered a method to hand-pollinate flowers that is still in use today. His technique revolutionized the growing of vanilla for spice, as seed pods only develop after pollination occurs (i.e., when pollen is brought to the part of the flower that enables sperm and eggs to meet and thus form seeds), and there are no pollinators known to otherwise pair with vanilla in the places it has been uprooted to. Please learn more about Edmond's life and impact here.
Today, billions of people are able to interact with and enjoy vanilla, due to the effort of tens of thousands of workers each year. About three-quarters of commercially produced vanilla is grown in Madagascar and its neighboring island of Réunion, and ninety-five percent of vanilla originates from one species: Vanilla planifolia, a native of eastern Mexico and also known as Bourbon vanilla. We cultivate it's close relative, Vanilla tahitensis, a.k.a. Tahitian vanilla, the second most for flavouring. A multi-step, months-long curing progress is needed to give rise to the splendor that we know as vanilla spice, which is comprised of 250 to 500 (!) different flavor and fragrance components, the most prominent being vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde).
There is some record of vanilla being used medicinally - including to treat fever, lung disorders, wounds, and intestinal gas, as well as an aphrodisiac - but these claims have not been extensively researched.
Legacies:
In the Totonac language, vanilla is known as Caxixanath, Sumixanat, and Xanat (“hidden flower”). Vanilla has been considered a sacred plant to the Totonac people and is entwined with a legend of when a princess of the Totonac empire had a forbidden love with a young prince. When the couple was discovered, they were put to death as punishment. In the place where their bodies were laid, two plants began to grow: a shrub entangled with an orchid that gave off a beautiful perfume with the fruits it adorned itself and the other with.
When the Totonac empire was conquered in the mid-15th century by the Aztec people, vanilla was used to pay tribute. Vanilla is a valued addition to the energizing chocolate beverage xocoatl, which was enjoyed by Aztec and Mayan nobles and warriors across southeastern Mexico and Central America. In the Aztec language Nahuatl, vanilla is known as tlil-xochitl (“black pod”).
Challenges:
Deforestation and over-collecting from first trying to establish the crop has endangered members of the Vanilla genus to varying degrees.
In particular, because V. planifolia is propagated primarily through cuttings (also known as cloning), populations have high levels of genetic similarity. This low diversity in a population can translate to a reduced potential to innovate and defend against challenges, such as disease, pest outbreaks, and increasing climate stress. The genes of wild relatives can therefore be important in breeding and bringing beneficial traits into a population, such as greater root-rot and virus resistance or drought tolerance.
Musings:
I have been fortunate to readily and regularly come across vanilla, primarily meeting when its hulls have wizened and its distilled wonders are in extract;
A start and end: pods, full of such tiny seeds, of such amazing life - both given and had.
When its fragrance and the air I breathe intermingle, vanilla can conjure up reels of memories imbued with undertones of hope, bringing to light what has seemed far off or lost, as well as what could come to be
Senses of enchantment and benevolence imparted
From the treat of carefully scooped ice cream shared with my father as a child - excited anticipation of its sweet flavour, the lock of our eyes shining bright between us, and the kingdoms and castles that would be crafted with the quicksilver of my spoon in the speckled melt -
To the addition of its richness in a messy-beautiful gathering of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt, my mother nearby, and a chorus of the kitchen radio sounding;
Cookie cutter shapes then, to what was rolled out before me, to try to make solid various abstractions of family, cheer, the desire for comfort and togetherness, and dreams of much sweetness and delight
Vanilla close at hand all the while, bottled with an assurance/a priming for continued alteration and attempting; as if to say,
What all to still create
With all that is inherent in being given the space of a day
Encompassed by what we call vanilla,
thank you, world, for all of this,
these wondrous invitations and allowances offered for a deeper, fuller living of the present: today.
Do you have experiences that you treasure in which vanilla has played some role in? What bridges did it help you construct?
Are there other ‘vanilla’ things that lead you to a treasuring of your day, of your living wherever you are at?
Maybe there other aromas that have charmed you? If so, what is it about them?
🜂🜁🜃🜄
References & Other Resources to Learn More:
I highly recommend reading more about Edmond Albius!: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/06/16/the-little-boy-who-shouldve-vanished-but-didnt/
Bory, Séverine, Michel Grisoni, Marie-France Duval, and Pascale Besse. "Biodiversity and preservation of vanilla: present state of knowledge." Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 55, no. 4 (2008): 551-571.
Alomia, Y. A., A. T. Mosquera-Espinosa, N. S. Flanagan, and J. T. Otero. "Seed Viability and Symbiotic Seed Germination in Vanilla spp.(Orchidaceae)." Research Journal of Seed Science10 (2017): 43-52.
Yours affectionately,
Edi
Comentários