Kat Chow on NPR’s code switch blog wrote a great article on the history of vanilla. As with so many things originating on the American continent, the history is inextricably connected to colonialism, slavery, and appropriation by whiteness. For instance, the Totonac Indians of Mexico had the knowledge how to efficiently cultivate vanilla beans, a knowledge that was, for obvious reasons, not shared with European colonialists. The method of cultivating the plant was rediscovered by a young slave in 1841:
Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old French-owned black slave from the Bourbon Islands, figured out what other botanists had tried to do for centuries. Albius discovered that the vanilla plant could be pollinated by hand using a blade of grass or a swipe of a thumb. It was effective and labor-intensive, but once folks figured out how to pollinate the plants, vanilla as a flavor became more accessible.
It’s a fascinating story, I can highly recommend it.
When Vanilla Was Brown And How We Came To See It As White : Code Switch : NPR
Thoughts?