Customer Reviews

Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid

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You might think that you would have to be interested in vanilla, cooking, or maybe Madagascar, or Mexico, or some of the other exotic locations visited in this book in order to enjoy it. If so, you are wrong. Vanilla does give enticing glimpses into these places, but this book has merits beyong the great travelogue it is.

This book is many stories in one. It is a book of history; economy; theft; magic; and love. Mr. Ecott's writing is an exciting mixture of anecdote and explanation that has a pace more often found in well written fiction.

His description of his meal in Tahiti will leave your mouth watering, and you will see the inside of the traders shacks, with Ecott so skillfully recounting the detail you will have to remind yourself it is his memory, and not your own.

Add to that the fact that is a fascinating basic reference work for a subject horribly difficult to find information on, and you a have a real winner.

Vanilla is one of the most popular flavoring spices in the world and is even a major ingredient in perfumes, paint and tires, but the story of vanilla is a botanical mystery that only a twelve-year-old African slave solved. Vanilla would not bear fruit outside of its Mexican origins, until the slave developed a process for cultivating it and turned it into a labor-intensive agricultural crop. Lively, revealing, and enthusiastically recommended reading, Tim Ecott's Vanilla: Travels In Search Of The Ice Cream Orchid, should not be missed by any kitchen cook, gourmet diner, or botanist.

"Vanilla is the most labour-intensive agricultural product in the world." ~ pg. 2

What does a princess falling in love, rusting cargo boats, Queen Elixabeth I, the Aztecs, murder and Coca-Cola have in common. They are all part of the intriguing history of vanilla.

This book has interesting facts, like how Indonesian vanilla is better to use when baking cookies. There is a description of a visit to an ice cream factory and descriptions of a complex curing process to produce the vanilla we use in baking.

Tim Ecott meets with a reclusive botanist who is an expert on vanilla and paints a vivid portrait of the lives of people who work to bring the vanilla beans to the buyers. There is also information on how the scent of vanilla might help with weight loss.

"Before the beans can be measured and bundled they need to go into drying boxes for another eight months, and all the while they are shrinking as they lose their original moisture, so that five or six kilograms of green beans will weigh just one kilogram when dried." ~ pg. 157

If you have any interest in the history of the Mexican vanilla orchid then this book might be one you'll love to read. You may also be interested in:

Lotus Light Pure Essential Oils - Vanilla 1 oz - Fragrance Oils

Philosophy Vanilla Birthday Cake Lip Shine

12 Madagascar Vanilla Beans

Vanilla Extract, Pure (Madagascar) 4fl.oz.

Anne Willan: From My Chateau Kitchen- a recipe for infusing a pineapple with vanilla using vanilla beans

~The Rebecca Review

First of all, a bit of a disclaimer: i adore history books that look at a culture or a time period through the lense of one thing. They add a focus and a storyline to what could otherwise be a confusing jumble of dates and names. This is one of those books, so i started out well disposed.

This book follows Vanilla from the boring every day foods we take for granted, through the worlds of haute cuisine, and into international finance, banditry, murder.. and questions of fair trade and historical treaties. You may never look at an item with Vanilla (or its artificial substitute, Vanillin) the same way again. It is, after all, in everything from ice cream (obviously) to your diet cola (really?) and the price fluctuations of Vanilla concern multi national concerns in ways you would not anticipate.

Like many books of this genre it can be a bit dense reading, and sometimes the jumps of place/time/culture can be a bit hard to follow, but all in all its fairly well organized. The problem of course is that the TRADE in vanilla jumps all over, crossing the same places and people over and over again, and this is just naturally a bit puzzling. I learned a lot about varieties of vanilla, why one is better in specific use than another... and how they are grown.

This book would be useful as a reference to any cooks, but especially to any bakers. Its obviously great for the history buffs, but it ALSO has a great interest n anyone researching how our food is grown/produced and the history of the slave trade.

Since almost all of us consume vanilla or its artificial substitute DAILY i suspect this book will be more interesting to most people than some of the other ones i liked, such as "Cod" or "The Big Oyster" or "Orchid Fever". If you like this one i suggest trying "a History of the World in 6 glasses" and "Salt, a world History" next.

This was a most interesting history of vanilla production and development. The author did an excellent job.