Vanilla-Bean
The Vanilla-Bean is the fruit of the Vanilla planifolia or flat-leaved Vanilla vine and is the source from which pure or true Vanilla Extract is made. This climbing perennial belongs to the Orchid family and is indigenous to Central and South America, but reaches its perfection of flavor in Mexico. The Mexican bean sometimes attains a length of ten inches.
One of the Extract Stills
When gathered, the beans are yellowish green, fleshy and without odor. Their color and odor is developed by a process of fermentation or sweating, which differs in various countries. The best method consists of sun-drying for about a month, the beans being pressed alternately between the folds of blankets and exposed to the air. After curing they are tied in bundles. Vanilla-Beans when cured exude and become covered with fine frostlike crystals of vanillin, the important active flavoring principle.
Next in value to the Mexican bean comes the Bourbon, which term is applied to all the Vanilla-Beans grown in the islands of the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of Africa, of which Madagascar, Réunion, the Comores, Mauritius and the Seychelles are most important. These beans are shorter than the Mexican, decidedly inferior in flavoring quality, and, therefore, less expensive. They more nearly resemble the Tonka bean in odor. The cheapest beans are the Tahitis and so-called vanillons or beans of the wild Vanilla (Vanilla pompona). They are little used in extract making, and properly so, as they have neither strength nor flavor.
The Tonka bean is here mentioned simply because it is so largely used in the manufacture of imitation Vanilla Extracts. It is the seed of the Dipterix odorata, native to Guiana. The pod is almond shaped and contains a single seed shaped like a kidney-bean. This bean is dark in color, having a thin, shiny, brittle skin, containing a two-lobed oily kernel. A hundred years ago these beans were found in the snuffbox of every gentleman and in the handkerchief case of every lady.
Further information regarding the Vanilla-Bean may be found under Flavoring Extracts on [page 22].
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