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

[Richenda du Jardin]

Be aware that all that was found were traces of vanillin and other
chemicals, not actual plants. Other plants produce these same chemicals so
vanilla orchids are not found and for the scientists to claim they were was
a gross overstatement of their findings.

Richenda

On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 7:50 PM Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> 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 **
>
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