Transcript of “Why Does “Vanilla” Mean Bland or Boring?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Aksa and I’m calling from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Hi Aksa, welcome to the show.
Well, here’s the thing. I’ve been making my very own vanilla since 2017. My sister taught me how.
And recently I went to Hawaii and lo and behold, they had a vanilla plantation there and we took a tour.
And then the guy was explaining how vanilla is such a complicated plant to fertilize, to pollinate, because there’s only one bee that can do it.
It’s a Brazilian bee, and it’s not all that reliable.
So they can count on it.
So it has to be fertilized by people and have to have a certain time frame.
They have to stress the plant to make it think it’s dying, and then it produces the pod.
So he mentioned that because it is such a complicated plant, he doesn’t understand why people usually refer to something being vanilla as being plain, when vanilla is definitely not plain.
So I was like, I wonder why we came up with this idea of calling things that are plain vanilla.
What a great question.
Yeah, and there’s all kinds of history about that, if you get the actual vanilla.
And it has an interesting story.
It was indigenous to Mexico, actually, and it was brought to Europe in the 16th century.
And this new flavor became a favorite of the upper classes.
It was added to pastry, for example.
And Queen Elizabeth I in England adored vanilla and supposedly had it every single day or had something cooked with vanilla every single day.
And then Thomas Jefferson was actually enchanted with it when he went to Paris and he brought back a recipe for vanilla ice cream and helped to popularize it in this country.
I mean, it’s hard to imagine this now, but at the time, this was this fancy new flavor.
As you suggested, it later came to serve as a base for other ingredients in ice cream.
You know, it became sort of the canvas for butter pecan and chocolate chip and fudge swirl and fruits.
But by the late 19th century, at least we start seeing the expression plain vanilla, you know, without all those things.
And it’s also really interesting that the use of vanilla being kind of bland was influenced by jazz to some degree.
In the 1930s, the saxophonist Lester Young used to tell piano players to just play vanilla.
And by that, he meant, you know, keep your accompaniment simple so that the rest of us can shine.
And then over time, as you suggested, the term vanilla came to apply to other things that were, you know, just basic or run-of-the-mill or ordinary.
And then in the 70s or so, we start hearing about vanilla having to do with vanilla sex as opposed to something less conventional.
But it’s a fascinating story how this flavor went from being something, you know, so unusual and exciting for people to, you know, something that we think of as kind of basic and boring.
Huh. I see.
Well, you know, the real vanilla is quite expensive.
And then you have when you find something cheap, then it’s like you have to read the fine label.
And it usually says, real imitation vanilla.
Right, right.
You have to pay attention to that.
Well, you have been a delight and very informative.
And I can’t believe how much we learned during this call.
So thank you so much, Aksa.
All right.
Thanks.
We will take your plain vanilla questions and we’ll take your black cherry ones too.
