No subject

Vanilla

OED lists this as the earliest quotation
1662 H. Stubbe  Indian Nectar ii. 11
They added..the Vaynillas [to the chocolate] for the like ends, and to
strengthen the brain.

[No one on this list mentioned some of the more unusual aspects about
the naming
 of the plant. SCA-Cooks would have leaped upon and spent days on the
fact that
 the name is connected to the word vaina (:-L. va gi na  vagina)
meaning  'sheath'.
  Mark Morton's book Cupboard Love goes into the background of the word
for those interested.]

Anyway the date of 1662 would go along with C. Anne Wilson's comment
 in Food and Drink in Britain that it came into use in England with the
preparation
 of chocolate as a drink.
Through EEBO I looked at the 1662 copy of Henry Stubbe's The Indian
nectar,
 or, A discourse concerning chocolata the nature of cacao-nut and the
other
 ingredients of that composition is examined and stated according
 to the judgment and experience of the Indian and Spanish writers.
It's the Harvard copy of 180 plus pages that is available online.

This does have recipes in English for making the drink using vanilla as
 an ingredient. Stubbe cites several recipes including one recipe as
that
 being used by Antonio Colmenero de Ledefina which includes vanilla. One
thing
 that is valuable about this discourse is that he describes and
discusses
 all the ingredients that go into making the drink.

On page 52 he writes:
"The next ingredient of Chocolate is Tlilxochitl (or as some write
 it Tlixochil) or, as the Spaniards call it, banillas olorofas, or
Vaynillas=85.
their smell is admirable, they which have parallei'd it with Ambergrise,
Musk,
 or Balsame, failed in their Character for it hath a peculiar mildness,
and delicacy
 in it, not to be found in those other."
Stubbe goes on to fully describe the plant, the pod, and the seeds
saying that
 "Whosoever shall try these Vaynillas by the strength and pentratingness
of their
 smell, and perhaps by the vigour of their effects, performing what
nothing of
 European, or East-Indy growth, of a less Degree in heat and dryness,
then the
 third, doth; will rank them with those of that sort but here who shall
consult his
 Senses, and observe the mild delicacy in these American Products, and
particularly
 in the Vaynillas, which is inconsistent with so much heat, and dryness
and shall
 consider, that his tongue feels nothing parallel to what happens upon
the tasting
 of a grain of Chili, or red Pepper (which yet is placed as hot in the
third degree)
 he will by many degrees separate and distinguish the former from the
latter=85. "
He concludes, "for to use Cloves instead of Vainillas is a ridiculous
mockage,
and hurtful to several complexions in Chocolota."

Another earlier work that mentions vanilla is A Curious Treatise of the
Nature
 and Quality of Chocolate. It is given as being written in Spanish by
Antonio
 Colmenero and put into English by Diego de Vades-forte. It was
published in
English in 1640. It too lists recipes for the drink. Listed among the
other
ingredients that go into "this confection" is "another which they call
Vinecaxtli,
which in the Spanish they call Orejuelas, which sweet smelling Flowers,
Aromaticall and hot." Page 14

This answers the question: can we find recipes in English from before
1650?
Well, yes we can. I would also point out that by 1683 recipes featuring
chocolate with vanilla are being recorded in household manuscripts.
See Brears' The Gentlewoman's Kitchen for examples. Do not be fooled
however
 by the infamous "chocolate cr=E8me" featured in Fettiplace. It does not
date from 1604.

One really weird place that vanilla can be found in a 17th century
recipe for
 something other than a drink involving chocolate is in a book of ices.
Today
 it seems second nature to think about vanilla ice cream, but in the
17th century?
 Actually yes!!! Elizabeth David notes that she owned a copy of an
Italian work
 (undated but definitely 17th century) entitled
 Brieve e Nuova Modo da Farsi ogni sorte di Sorbette con facilta.
In Harvest of the Cold Months, David writes on page 150: "An unexpected
one,
 given the period, is vanilla, which evidently came early to Naples via
its
 Spanish overloads and their colony of Peru. A vanilla ice in those days
was not
 custard based but simply an infusion of 1 large bean pulverized with
sugar
 and immersed in 10 goblets of boiling water."

Should anyone want to pursue the topic, there are some books that might
be sought out.
 Une orchid=E9e qu'on appela Vanille : description v=E9ritable de
l'histoire,
 des tribulations & vertus d'une plante aromatique, 1535-1998 by Nicolas
Bouvier.1998.
 This is a French publication of  119 pages. Gen=E8ve : Editions
Metropolis, ISBN: 2883400601 .
14 libraries in the world are listed as owning it as according to OCLC.
With only the University of  Chicago having it in the Midrealm.

Even rarer are these books-
Vanilla; its botany, history, cultivation and economic import
 by Donovan S. Correll.  New York : Society for Economic Botany, 1953
And
The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla by Henry Bruman which was
published in 1948.

I hope this helps the discussion along--

Johnnae llyn Lewis    Johnna Holloway

>
> >From: <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
> >Yup, the vanilla orchid is from South/Central America as I recall, and i=
n
> >fact Vanilla didn't come into common use until the 1800s because it wasn=
't
> >until then that people worked out a way to hand-pollinate the flowers to
> >increase yield to commercial quantities.
> >
> >-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

"Leah A. Montgomery" wrote:
I never realized that we've been using it commonly for less than 200 years.
We use it in just about everything.
SCA: Safia bint Wahib al Marakeshi called Samira