Vanilla: A Flavor from Orchids香草：来自兰花的芬芳

“The farmers move quickly through snaking vines， seeking out the pale， waxy flowers that bloom just one morning each year. They use thin， pointed sticks to lift the delicate membrane that separates the male and female parts of the flower. With thumb and forefinger， they push the segments into each other to ensure pollination1.”

“农人们快步穿过蜿蜒的藤蔓，去寻找那颜色苍白、每年只开放一个早晨的蜡质花朵。他们用尖细的小棒挑起隔开雄蕊和雌蕊的薄膜，用拇指和食指把两边的花蕊推拢，确保花朵授粉。”

If the union is successful， “the thick green base of the flower swells almost immediately，” as food writer Sarah Lohman2 writes in her book Eight Flavors. “The swollen base matures into a green fingerlike seedpod—a fruit—that ripens yellow and eventually splits at the end.”

如果授粉成功，“花朵厚实的绿色基部几乎立刻开始膨胀。”美食作家萨拉·洛曼在她的作品《八种风味》里写道，“膨胀的花基发育成绿色的、状若手指的种荚，那是它的果实。种荚成熟后呈黄色，最终会在末端开裂。”

To wait too long or to damage the plant during pollination is to lose a precious flower that could have matured into a pod. That’s a costly mistake for what has become one of the most beloved， lucrative spices in existence： vanilla3. Consumers’ insatiable appetite for this fragrant spice means that an estimated 18，000 products on the market contain vanilla flavor today， with prices for natural vanilla hovering around $300 per pound.

要是没有及时授粉，或者授粉时破坏了植株，就会失去一朵珍贵的、原本可以结成豆荚的花。这样的失误代价昂贵，因为这可是迄今为止最受欢迎、最赚钱的香料植物之一——香荚兰。这种芬芳的香料让消费者欲罢不能，以至于目前市场上有约18，000种含有香草风味的产品，而天然香草的价格徘徊在每磅300美元上下。

The work of hand pollination is painstaking， but not new. Long before Europeans took to4 vanilla’s taste， the creeping vine grew wild in tropical forests throughout Mesoamerica5. While the Totonac people of modern-day Veracruz6， Mexico， are credited as the earliest growers of vanilla， the oldest reports of vanilla usage come from the pre-Columbian7 Maya. The Maya used vanilla in a beverage made with cacao and other spices. After conquering the Totonacan empire， the Aztecs followed suit8， adding vanilla to a beverage consumed by nobility and known as chocolatl9.

人工授粉的工作颇为辛苦，但并不新鲜。早在欧洲人迷上香草的美味之前，这种匍匐藤蔓就已在整个中美洲的热带森林里自然生长。尽管人们认为居住在现今墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯州的托托纳克人是最早种植香荚兰的人，但使用香草的最早记录则来自前哥伦布时期的玛雅人。他们在一种用可可豆和其他香料混合制成的饮料中加入香草。阿兹特克人征服托托纳克帝国后效法此方，将香草加入饮料，专供贵族享用，这种饮料被称为“巧克拉特”。

The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs in 1519 brought the fragrant flower—and its companion， cacao—to Europe. Vanilla was cultivated in botanical gardens in France and England， but never offered up its glorious seeds. Growers couldn’t understand why until centuries later when， in 1836， Belgian horticulturist10 Charles Morren reported that vanilla’s natural pollinator was the Melipona bee11， an insect that didn’t live in Europe. （A recent study， however， suggests that Euglossine bees12 may actually be the orchid’s primary pollinator.）

1519年，西班牙人征服阿兹特克人，将这种芳香的花朵连同其伴侣可可豆一起带回欧洲。香荚兰开始在法国和英格兰的植物园中得到培植，但它从未呈献出自己高贵的种子。自那以后的几个世纪里，种植者们都没有找到原因，直到1836年比利时园艺学家夏尔·莫朗提出，香荚兰的天然授粉者是无刺蜂，但这种昆虫并未见于欧洲。（不过，最近的一项研究则认为，这种兰花的主要授粉者其实可能是兰花蜂。）

Five years later， on the island of Réunion13， a 39-mile long volcanic hotspot in the Indian Ocean， everything changed. In 1841， an enslaved boy on the island named Edmond Albius developed the painstaking yet effective hand-pollination method for vanilla that is still in use today， which involves exposing and mating the flower’s male and female parts. His technique spread from Réunion to Madagascar and other neighboring islands， and eventually worked its way back to Mexico as a way to augment the vanilla harvest pollinated by bees.

五年后，在留尼汪岛（印度洋上一处长达39英里的火山活跃区）上，一切发生了改变。1841年，一个名叫埃德蒙·阿尔比尤斯的奴隶男孩发明了给香荚兰人工授粉的办法：让花朵的雄蕊和雌蕊暴露出来，并使两者交配。这个方法颇为辛苦，但收效显著，沿用至今。他的技术从留尼汪逐渐传播到了马达加斯加及其他临近岛屿，最终传回了墨西哥，作为对蜜蜂授粉的补充，增加香荚兰的收成。

This proliferation helped whet the world’s appetite for vanilla. The spice quickly found its way into cakes and ice cream， perfumes and medicines， and was valued for its intoxicating flavor and aroma. But despite growing demand and a robust crop， the tremendous amount of time and energy that went into cultivation and processing affected farmers’ ability to supply the market—and continues to do so today. Nearly all of the vanilla produced commercially today is hand-pollinated.

香荚兰的产量激增，令全世界都为它垂涎。很快这种香料就被用于蛋糕、冰淇淋、香水和药物中，并因它那醉人的美味和芳香而备受珍视。但在不断增产的需求和可观的产量背后，香草的种植和加工过程却要耗费农民大量的时间精力，始终影响着他们供给市场的能力。这种情况一直持续至今，因为几乎所有商业化种植的香荚兰都要靠人工授粉。

“Vanilla requires a fair amount of skill to grow，” explains Tim McCollum， co-founder of Madécasse， a direct-trade chocolate and vanilla company. “You can’t just put seed in the ground， tend to it and expect it to produce a yield. Hand pollination is a learned skill. Many farmers have been growing vanilla for three to four generations. Smallholder farmers … have an absolute sixth sense as to when the orchids will bloom.”

“种植香荚兰需要相当高的技术含量。”马达加斯加巧克力和香草直销公司的联合创始人蒂姆·麦科勒姆解释说，“你不能只把种子埋进地里，照顾照顾，就指望它能丰收了。人工授粉可是个技术活儿，很多农民家里三四代都是种植香荚兰的。那些小规模种植的农民……靠着绝对的第六感就知道兰花什么时候会开。”

Moreover， the vanilla aromas and flavors we know and love don’t reveal themselves until the crop is cured14 and dried. So it’s equally important to know to manage the plants once they bear fruit. After harvesting， McCollum explains， vanilla beans are sorted and graded. They’re then blanched15 in hot water to halt fermentation and placed in large containers to sweat for 36 to 48 hours. “It’s when the beans start to change from green to brown， and start to develop aroma，” he says.