Easy fix #2 – Vanilla.
This one is a simple ‘synthetic’ vs. ‘real’ discussion. You know where I’m going to fall on this one – go for the real stuff. We are, after all, working towards a whole foods kitchen. Why have one of your most common flavorings be a chemically derived fake? If you’re worried about cost, don’t let that deter you from using good quality vanilla – you can make your own extract that tastes as good – or better – than the high quality extracts for a fraction of the price. Follow the links farther down in this post for those instructions. My sister does this and is so enamored with her homemade extract that I have vanilla beans coming from my co-op to make my own.
Vanilla was ‘discovered’ along with many other important flavorings – like chocolate – when Europeans came to the Americas. Prior to vanilla being used as a catch-all basic flavoring (after it was able to be synthetically mass-produced in the 1930s), rose-water was the most common flavoring. In a cookbook I read based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writings and life, rose-water was talked about as being a staple flavoring in the kitchen. If you want to make your own rose water, try here or here.
There are two things that need to be in a discussion about vanilla – real vs. synthetic and basic safety information for buying vanilla.
First, then – what is the difference between real and synthetic vanilla?
Synthetic vanillin (vanillin is the substance that gives vanilla its characteristic flavor) was first developed in 1874 from coniferin, which is found in pine bark. Two years later, vanillin was synthesized from wood creosote and a few decades later, vanillin derived from clove oil was available. In the 1930s, vanillin was able to be much more cheaply produced using waste from the Kraft paper-making process.
Today, some vanillin is produced from lignin wastes (from paper-making) but most comes from a two-step process using the chemical precursors guaiacol and glyoxylic acid. Because of the origin of the flavoring (conifers or extracts from coal tar), synthetic flavorings have a bitter after taste. Red dye is used in synthetic vanillas to give it its dark, murky color. Products labeled ‘vanilla flavoring’ are a combination of pure vanilla extract and imitation vanilla extract. The flavor difference is not as noticeable, but it’s still not the real thing (she says with her nose in the air).
A company named Rhodia sells a biosynthetic vanillin made by the action of microorganisms on ferulic acid extracted from rice bran. It is sold under the trade name Rhovanil Natural and can be labeled as a natural flavoring. Source
So what is ‘real’ vanilla and how is it processed?
Picture credit
Vanilla begins with an orchid – it is the only orchid out of almost 20,000 varieties that has edible parts. This type of orchid opens its flower for less than a day and must be pollinated within that time, so vanilla was not able to be grown commercially until hand pollination of flowers was developed. Once pollinated, the flowers develop long, thin pods which are picked when still green.
Once picked, the beans are plunged into hot water and then the drying and sweating phase begins. Every day the beans are dried in the sun and every night they are wrapped in blankets to sweat. After the beans become a dark brown color and develop a white crystalline substance (vanillin) on the outside of the bean, the drying and sweating process is done. The beans are then aged to bring out their full flavor, a process that can take a few years.
You can see why synthetic vanillin is a boon for the ice cream and chocolate makers – it would simply be too expensive to add real vanilla to mass-produced foods. It’s a lot easier – and cheaper – to simply pull vanillin out of coal tar or paper waste.
Most of the vanilla on the market today is from the Madagascar islands. If you find ‘Bourbon Bean’ vanilla, it will come from these islands and is the sweetest and thinnest of the three types of vanilla beans. The Mexican vanilla bean has a stronger flavor, but when buying Mexican vanilla, heed what I say below. Tahitian beans are the thickest of the three and very aromatic, but not very flavorful at all, mostly being used in perfume making.
You can buy real vanilla in several different forms: extract and essence, pods (beans), powdered, and vanilla sugar. Vanilla extract and vanilla beans are the ones I’ll talk about here.
Vanilla extract is an easy way to buy and use vanilla and the processing is straightforward. Joy Of Baking says that “Vanilla extract is produced by steeping the vanilla beans in an alcohol and water solution for several months, sometimes with sugar added, thereby producing a clear dark liquid with a rich flavor that is highly aromatic. The FDA requires that pure vanilla extract contain 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon of liquid and contain 35% alcohol. This is called one-fold vanilla extract and is what you find in stores. Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract is an excellent vanilla that can be found in specialty food stores and by mail order.” When you buy vanilla extract, check the label to be sure it is ‘pure’.
If you want to make your own vanilla extract from vanilla beans, it is very simple, very cost-effective, and very rewarding. Check out my friend Paxye’s blog here and here for the process. Since pure extracts may still contain some sugar, corn syrup, caramel, colors as well as stabilizers, this is a really good alternative, especially for those with corn sensitivities (where *isn’t* corn these days?).
If you want to use whole vanilla beans, I recommend checking out the book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for some fantastic recipes using vanilla beans. Vanilla beans add amazing flavor to all sorts of desserts – flavor that is much more intense than when you use extract. You want to use beans that are black, shiny, moist, tender, and plump. Dry, shriveled, hard beans are useless for flavoring, so don’t buy them. Keep your beans in an airtight container but do not refrigerate.
Now, about buying real vanilla safely.
If you buy Madagascar or Tahitian vanilla, you should be fine. The problems crop up when you look at Mexican vanilla.
According to The Straight Dope, “During the Mexican Revolution of 1910-’20 fighting devastated the gulf coast, the center of Mexican vanilla cultivation, and production dropped sharply. Faced with a flood of cheap ersatz product and little of the genuine article to sell, Mexican producers began making synthetic vanilla themselves. But Mexico was still known as the home of the world’s best vanilla, so the producers didn’t admit what they were doing. They disguised the artificial taste by adding coumarin, an extract of the tonka bean, Dipteryx odorata. Coumarin tastes and smells just like vanilla, only more so.”
And there’s the rub – coumarin, while it has its medical uses, is not something that you want to be ingesting in your food every time you use vanilla. It’s dangerous. If you do buy Mexican vanilla ‘flavoring’, make sure that it is labeled ‘coumarin free’.
Recipe
Grilled or Pan Fried Pork Chops with Fresh Apples |
Ingredients4 loin or rib pork chops 3 large firm, sweet apples, cored, peeled and sliced into 12 slices* 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/4 cup apple juice or cider 1/2 to 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (or to taste) salt and pepper to taste Instructions Grill or pan cook pork chops until barely done. Place on a platter in a warm oven. Add butter and brown sugar to pan used to cook pork chops and set over medium heat. Stir butter and sugar to blend well and to allow to caramelize slightly and to loosen small pieces of the pork chops. Add apple juice or cider and apple slices. Cook apples just until done, then remove with a slotted spoon and set apples aside. Reduce the pan juices to two to three tablespoons. Remove from heat and add vanilla, salt and pepper. Add apples slices and return to heat until the apples are hot. Pour over the pork chops. Serve with rice or potatoes. * Summer apples such as Gravenstein will work in this recipe; you may need to add a little extra sugar. Note: This recipe can also be made with peaches or nectarines. You will need less sugar and less juice as stone fruits have lots of natural juices. |
Cookbook
I was going to go with Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for this one and then reminded myself of the intriguing Little House on the Prairie cookbook. But I think I’ll do Ani’s book today.
I don’t remember where I first heard about Ani Phyo, but I checked her cookbook out of our library and was hooked. This cookbook has some really innovative raw food recipes that have Ani’s personal views and health and buying tips scattered among the recipes. She is a vegan raw foodie and was my first experience with raw food cookbooks. Some of her recipes are a quick flip past (“No thank you”), but many surprised me into thinking “That sounds really good” and “I wonder if that would work”.
If today’s post made you think “Using vanilla beans sounds interesting, but what do you do with a *bean*?”, then you should check her book out. She uses vanilla beans liberally in her recipes. Her smoothie recipes all use vanilla beans, as do most of her mylks (milk substitutes). She also uses vanilla beans in her syrups and deserts.
This book turned me on to drinking coconut water after exercising, using buckwheat on yogurt (my girls *love* that), and soaked, seasoned, and dehydrated almonds for travel snacks. She has a section on raw food beauty tips and even a small one on vegan dog food. I’m of the opinion that dogs are carnivores and should eat meat, but Ani is a dedicated vegan and has found recipes that seem to keep her dog healthy without meat. That was fascinating for me.
Whether you have turned down the vegan or raw food roads or not, you’ll find something you can take home from this cookbook. It’s written in a friendly, accessible style that doesn’t skimp on the activism – or the basic information you need if you want to move your diet in this direction. She even tells you what type of blender is the best (blenders get a heavy workout in her cookbook). Give this cookbook a try and let me know what you think!
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Sarah writes about her life at The Napping House and It Blows Here.
There are many reasons other than taste to choose real-food ingredients over industrial-food ones. That being said, Cook’s Illustrated did a blind taste test between real vanilla extract and imitation vanilla flavoring (synthesized vanillin) and found that, for baked goods, people preferred the flavoring.
One reason the propose is that the complex flavor compounds of real vanilla are driven off by the heat of the baking process, taking away some of its advantage. Another reason is that real vanilla has a minimum alcohol content, while imitation vanilla does not, and so manufacturers use as little alcohol as possible. This caused the real vanilla to taste “boozy” to some people.
Here’s the conclusion:
So what’s our conclusion? If you’re only buying one bottle of vanilla for cooking, baking, and making cold and creamy desserts, our top choice is a real extract. If you only use vanilla for baking, we have to admit there’s not much difference between a well-made synthetic vanilla and the real thing. Speaking to pastry chefs, we learned that many buy an arsenal of vanilla extracts, using cheaper imitation for baking and pure for confections made with moderate or no heat, such as puddings, pastry cream, and buttercream frosting.
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/tastetests/overview.asp?docid=18889
Well, it sounds like the fake stuff is greener. You know, recycling at it’s best. 😉
I’ve always used the fake stuff. I started using it when Mom’s church sold it for a fundraiser. Now, however, I’m concerned about the sodium benzoate that is used to preserve it.
To echo what Joshua said about the alcohol taste. I have noticed that flavor in some vanilla all natural ice creams I have purchased.
I found vanilla bean for sale at the local Mennonite store and have been hooked ever since. I just placed the dried bean in a repurposed 2oz bottle, filled up with Vodka and let it set for a few weeks. Strain the pod/seeds out and there you go. I have made a few batches from the same bean but they are not as strong. I am just an average baker-and have not noticed any difference between synthetic and homemade. Kris
I use whole vanilla beans all the time, I buy them in bulk from http://www.saffron.com/.
They sell organic vanilla beans. I believe vanilla like all herbs/spices is a healthy addition to any diet. Now that I have a source for good quality organic vanilla beans we use them all the time. Caramel Apple Marmalade with Vanilla beans – YUM!