[Sca-cooks] Vanilla in the old and new world?

[Terry Decker]

Stefan, until artificial pollination of vanilla orchids began in the 19th 
Century, vanilla orchids were limited to areas of the tropics and subtropics 
with enough of a limited set of insect pollinators.  There is roughly a 12 
hour window in which the flower can be pollinated and it will not germinate 
without the presence of certain fungi.  There are a number of plant diseases 
which can kill off the orchids.  In other words, there are limited areas 
which can produce the quantity of plants naturally to support a vanilla bean 
trade.

Currently, world vanilla production is down while demand is increasing. 
Vanilla extract was $70 a gallon in 2015.  It's around $500 a gallon today. 
And that is with modern artificial propagation and  cultivation techniques. 
Whoever produced the vanilla for Megiddo might not have been cultivating 
vanilla orchids, just collecting fruit from wild plants.  That would have 
made for a very irregular supply.  Since the Megiddo find is the only use of 
vanilla that we know of in the Old World prior to the 16th Century, it's 
likely the supply was limited and irregular and unbelievably expensive.

Southeast Asian or Indian vanilla likely came through the spice market in 
Kerala, India (existing from about 3000 BCE) then shipped to Eilat and from 
there into the Bronze Age Levant.  African vanilla would likely have come 
from expeditions from Punt (roughly Eritrea) into the area around 
Madagascar, then traded into Egypt and from there to the Levant.

Bear


Interesting. It looks like vanila was used in both the old and the new 
world. What this brings up is, why did it die out in the old world?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/vanilla-was-first-used-2500-years-earlier-and-half-world-where-we-thought-180970862/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20181121-daily-responsive&spMailingID=37474810&spUserID=NzM3Mzg2ODQ5OTU5S0&spJobID=1402296043&spReportId=MTQwMjI5NjA0MwS2

I hope this long link comes through useable.
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org **