Spice Boy Chronicles, No. 1: Vanilla Sugar

I was rooting around in my tacklebox* full of spices and seasonings the other day, looking for something what I can’t remember, and I rediscovered an old favorite:

Ah, vanilla sugar. I shook the jar to break up the clumps, and opened it to get a big snootful of what I consider to be one of the most delightful aromas in the universe. Standing there, in the kitchen, eyes crossing and head swimming in the scent wafting up from the sugar, I had a song begin to play in my head:

You still come to me in dreams
This little bed can barely hold
The dark beauty of your eyes
Burn like a fire in the cold**

Yeah, it’s like that.

The vanilla I’m rhapsodizing about is not vanillin nor is it vanilla extract. Vanillin is only the main aromatic compound in the mix of more than 200 different volatiles that are found in vanilla beans***. Vanillin alone cannot give enough depth to it. Vanillin can be synthesized from a variety of sources, mostly industrial by-products like wood lignin and (get this) coal tar extracts. I don’t know about you, but coal tar doesn’t exactly make my taste buds want to sit up and beg.

Vanilla extract certainly has its uses and I like it. But it is best when you need more the taste than both taste and smell. Cooking and baking has the side effect of volatilizing many of the delicate compounds that make up the scent. Extract certainly can give you the sense of it, but for me the heavy alcohol smell is too cloying and covers up some of the other entrancing facets of vanilla-ness.

No, what I am talking about is the vanilla bean itself. Long, thin, deep mahogany, like a French green bean mummified by the sun. If you are lucky you might even get one or two that have vanillin and glucose crystallized on the surface. Sort of like a long-legged supermodel wearing a diamond-encrusted bikini.

The taste of vanilla I adore. When I used to drink coffee, I liked to put some vanilla sugar in it now and then. Kee-rist, that was good. I still sprinkle it on my cereal sometimes. I also discovered that it is awesomesauce to put it on some peanut butter toast dotted with melted chocolate chips. Yeah, man, a sure fire way to get the day started off right.

Nothing, but nothing smells quite like a fresh vanilla bean. Many of you probably already know that if you take a vanilla bean and bury it in an airtight container of sugar, the aroma and flavor will permeate the sugar in about a week or so****. Refined sugar for me is…meh. Vanilla sugar, on the other hand, is ohmygawdgetmyfaceoutofthesugarbowlbeforeIsuffocate. Few scents have quite the effect on me that vanilla does. I have always been drawn to the aroma, even before I learned to enjoy the taste. Aromatic exotica, I like to think of it. It smells spicy-warm-sweet-caramel-honey-flowers, if that makes sense. To this day I cannot come up with words that adequately describe the aroma, without breaking it down into dry, terse descriptions that do not convey the “vanilla-ness” of vanilla.

The smell of vanilla conjures up a lot of things, from a sense of hominess (grandma baking cookies) to faraway lands (Madagascar, Indonesia) to sensual adventures (I smell vanilla:I think boudoir). The aroma of vanilla is a delicious paradox, combining the pleasures of the known and the mysteries of the unknown in one deep, complex scent. This scent hits the pleasure buttons of the boy I used to be and the man I became. Not often one can find something that reminds of grandma, and things that one probably would be embarrassed to discuss with grandma!

So it was that cookies and lust were simmering in the kitchen of my mind. I was amusing myself with the notion that a flower, an orchid from places so far away could excite me emotionally and physically, could make me feel good and relaxed. I was also curious, so I did what any self respecting food nerd would do: research.

What I found was all sorts of information relating to the therapeutic, medicinal, stimulative and calmative (paradoxical, but there it is) benefits of vanilla. Many of these have been posited over the course of thousands of years, and have begun to attract attention from modern science. It is possible that vanilla, or its scent, can have positive effects on a variety of ailments and conditions. Things like respiratory conditions, digestion and heart problems, claustrophobia and anxiety, even mild erectile problems*****.

Goes a hell of a lot further than just flavoring ice cream, doesn’t it?

However, the one bit of information that really made my jaw drop, laugh out loud and turn on that little light bulb in my head was thoroughly unexpected. It had to do with the name ‘vanilla’. According to my information, it was the Spanish that were the first Europeans to have the privilege of tasting vanilla. As with so many things in history, them what are first get to slap a name on it. In this case, the Spanish named it vainilla, which is the diminutive term for ‘sheath’ or ‘husk’. As is often the case, vainilla was a word derived from a Latin word which literally meant ‘sheath’ or ‘scabbard’. That Latin word?

Vagina.******

Well, then. Vanilla: smells good, tastes good, good for what ails you. I knew there was a reason I liked vanilla so much.

*That’s right, tackle box. What? Did you think I would keep them in a purse, or satin lined bag? Hell, no. My tools belong in proper boxes, dammit.
**From “I Dream An Old Lover” by Jeffrey Foucault, on the album ‘Ghost Repeater’. Great song.
***The geek confesses: I have on my bookshelf not 1 but 2 copies of “On Food and Cooking” by Harold McGee. All thanks to his work that I can spout food trivia like the 200 compounds bit. I have 2 different editions because I wanted to compare the updated version with the original. See? I’m a geek.
****Take a vanilla bean, split it or leave it whole – your choice – and bury it in a canister full of white sugar. Leave it for a week and then give it a sniff. You can take the bean out and use it for something else, or leave it in for a stronger hit. I was reminded of this while perusing the Penzeys Spices catalog. Jay-zus, I’m a geek.
*****There is recorded evidence that the scent of vanilla can improve ‘blood circulation to the male member’ i.e. it puts lead in yer pencil. I think I read that the same study showed a combination of black licorice and doughnut worked even better. Twizzlers and Krispy Kremes, anyone?
******I am not making this up.