Even though we can always count on sex columnist Dan Savage to coin a good term or two out there, our research (which was cursory at best) suggests that the way we, as a people, use the term “vanilla” to mean boring is not attributable to any one person. It’s also preposterous, frankly, since the real story of how vanilla comes to us is one fraught with peril, a finicky plant and an entire industry of people who struggle to make sure that French toast be Frenching with little more than a trip to almost any ol’ store.
Yeah, we’re very weirded out by how folks will be like, “Oh. My. God. Beckie, he was so vanilla!” So, like, you mean he grew against all odds someplace and became an amazing ice cream flavor? *Please note that we think most dudes we’ve met are indeed boring, which is why we need a better term for them—like “trash.”
Anyway, we’ve been thinking a lot about vanilla lately following an especially terse exchange wherein a friend of ours acted like our declaration that vanilla is our favorite shake means we’re boring. We love an overcomplicated melange of needless ingredients created to make people feel like they’re interesting as much as the next utensil does, but we also love concepts like comfort and tasty flavors. We also make a mean French toast with that sweet, sweet vanilla extract. What’re we getting to? We’re getting to how it’s time for a completely factual and in no way jokey fact/history lesson on vanilla!
*This Fork inspired by SFR’s calendar editor Adam Ferguson, who sent an interesting article on the pollination history of vanilla bean our way recently.
First off, did you know that pretty much every vanilla bean ever sold was pollinated by human hands? Turns out the method hails back to a 12-year-old enslaved kid by the name of Edmond Albius circa 1841. See, young Edmond was living his worst life on the island of Réunion, where the orchid from which we derive vanilla grew in abundance. The wild stuff was pollinated by one species of bee (thanks, little buddies!), but since everyone friggin’ loved it, the botanists of the day tried to work out a hand pollination method only to fail repeatedly. Edmond Albius, however, realized that the male and female parts of the plant were only separated by a thin membrane, and if you could puncture that membrane with a needle or, like a toothpick or a SIM card tool, you could get ‘em going, so to speak. And so he did. And so we do. We realize this sounds all easy and whatever, but according to a piece we read from Nautil-dot-us, the work is so delicate and tricky that it’s a whole thing. Plus, nobody worked it out before, so it’s fine to be like, “Oh, it’s so easy,” but grrrrrrl, you didn’t work it out!
Because of that bee thing from before, attempts to grow the orchid outside of its initial home of Southeastern Mexico failed. That bee liked to stay home and didn’t really propagate outside of its region, so there was no one to do that pollinating when they took the plant off-campus. Of course, Edmond Albius’ needle thing made it easier to grow them in other places, which is likely why we have easy access to the stuff now.
Even so, vanilla tends to only really grow successfully in specific places. We’re talking 10 or 20 degrees north or south of the equator. That’s specific, baby!
Fourthly of all, vanilla is the only orchid we, being humans, probably, eat. Now, we’re not speaking for every flower-eating schmoe off the street who eats any petals they can find, but as far as go-to-the-store-for-it-then-consume-it goes, this one’s the king. It’s also the only orchid that bears fruit. That could have been its own little item, but we tossed it in here.
Vanilla comes in vine form, which can grow up to 50 feet tall, and though you can grow similar vines within that equator radius we described, a lot more goes into the flavor. Think of it like wine grapes and how shade, terroir, terror, terra cotta, terra firma and Terabithia all have an impact on how it ultimately tastes. In other words, the vanilla grown a few miles from that other vanilla could taste different, even if most of us generally tend to perceive it all in the same way.
We also hear that the vanilla flower only blooms for 24 hours and must be pollinated within that window or it’ll just die. Chalk up another one for that’s not boring. In fact, that’s borderline dramatic. It’s like the plant is saying, “Love me or lose me, baby, because I’m blowin’ in the wind by EOD!”
Not shockingly, America uses more vanilla than anyplace else. What with our ice cream shops and our French toasting and our need for creams and syrups that make coffee taste like anything but coffee, we’re out here stone-cold beaning it up harder than anyone. We don’t know how much precisely we use out here, but we have seen estimates that between 2,000 and 2,500 tons of the stuff is produced each year.
Lastly, and this one is maybe the most important, we understand that spiders don’t really care for vanilla, and you can maybe keep them away if you’ve got whole vanilla beans in your kitchen. If you’re anything like us, you saw Aracnaphobia some years ago and ne’er recovered. And, since that movie is rooted in firm science FACT, and you don’t want to have to set a screaming tarantula on fire, it’s probably wise to keep them at bay bean style.
Have you ever seen a turtle get down?
Also
- While in the Railyard one recent evening, we couldn’t help but notice the new sign that went up for incoming bar Gatsby’s. It’ll be on the second floor of that one main building (you know the one) and opened/operated by the former owners of India House restaurant. And though on a personal level we find invoking the name Gatsby for a speakeasy to border on the tragically uncreative, we’re still glad people will have a place to drink in the Santa Fe Drinks District, which we’re petitioning to become the new name of the Railyard, because what the hell else is there to do over there anymore? Crepes?! Yeah right. Just say you wanna get smashed. We have yet to see an open date for Gatsby’s, but we’ll let you know. We’ll also let you know if we find the titular guy.
- We also couldn’t help but notice that Second Street Brewery’s Railyard spot now does Saturday morning breakfast. “Given the Farmers’ Market, we’re surprised they weren’t doing this for years,” we said out loud to nobody. According to the banner, they start service at 8 am.
- Meanwhile, down at Alkemē, owner/chef Hue-Chan Karels is not only transforming her restaurant into a concept dubbed Velvet Lantern Social on the first Thursday of each month from here on out (it’s an eating and drinking hang), she’ll have documentary filmmakers present for the inaugural version on Thursday, Oct. 2. They’ll be there to get footage for Karels’ Nhà Ta, a doc that will explore the Vietnamese diaspora through food.
- Word on the street is that the Henry and the Fish folks who briefly took over the pizza corner inside the CHOMP food hall have moved on, and that Craig Moya from the New Mexico Hard Cider Taproom and Time Traveler’s Gastropub is slated to take over the pizza-ings at 505 Cerrillos Road. We’ve watched Moya do a lot more with a lot less, and we look forward to sampling that pizza, even if we don’t know when that’s gonna happen exactly.
- The SFR staff has collectively sung the praises of Midtown’s Sagche’s Coffee House for years, but we didn’t know until today that they make their own tortillas for certain dishes. Now, we’re about as in love with Alicia’s Tortilleria as someone can be, but we’re also very much here for any restaurant making their own tortillas. It just tastes better. Learn even more here.
- Lastly this week, and since people are always asking us about food trucks, please know that La Carreta-Mata Crudas has a new location opening at 829 Camino Monte Rey. From what we’ve seen, these champs tend to sell out pretty quickly, so if you want to try the tacos you should get on that ASAP.
More Tidbits
- A 28-year-old IHOP server in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was arrested recently after a so-called “gratuity blow-up,” during which she admonished a family who tipped like shit. Apparently, a family tipped $0 on an $83 check, which caused server Ashley Porter to do some chasin’ and yellin’. Good for her! It’s almost like those people didn’t read our 2024 edition titled You need to tip your servers. Full Stop. We wish Porter all the best as we now love her.
- While perusing the internets for recipes we’ll almost certainly never make, we stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen-dot-com, presumably a tedious homage to the Friends line about being a smitten kitten, but also a webpage with some delicious-ass looking recipes. In short, if you want to try something new, you could do a lot worse than checking out this NYC blog/recipe site. Here’s a link. In the meantime, we urge you to think about what a piece of shit Ross was. Seriously. Like, Rachel gains her independence with an exciting job for the first time ever, and his move is to flip out over her having a male coworker—and then bone the copy shop girl when Rachel doesn’t immediately acquiesce to his frail and toxic masculinity? And we’re talking ’90s-era Aniston, baby, at the height of her cultural powers! GOD! Fuck you, Ross, seriously. In fact, go look up a “Ross from friends, no laugh track” video to understand what a deeply disturbed and maniacal monster that character was.
- Food and/or Wine-dot-com would like us all to know that Yelp-dot-com has released its list of the 100 best coffee shops in America. Is New Mexico on that list? Yup. Is Santa Fe? Nope. Which is how we know the list is CRAP, because Ohori’s is the dang best. We know it, you know it, America should, too. Congrats to Cutbow Coffee and Castle Coffee in ABQ, though, and also to Mr. Bee’s Coffee and Teas in Santa Rosa. Enjoy your results. Enjoy them straight to hell!!!!
In Summation
We’ve recently learned there’s a whole contingent of folks out there who wait for bananas to ripen all the way before eating them. We honestly thought that most folks preferred them firm and a little green, but apparently you dinguses are all out there full-on chopping on gooey bananas. This is weird to us, and we’re curious where our readers land on the debate vis-a-vis, mooshy or firm? And we’re talking about just plain eating a banana, not making banana bread or something. We’re talking about Kirk Cameron’s proof-of-God bananas in all their yellow glory. Did you click that link? How nuts is Kirk Cameron? We’re more into Candace Cameron’s work, and we wouldn’t say no to Jodie Sweetin if she asked us to run away with her. #WeHeartStephanie
