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.

此外，我们熟知和喜爱的那种香草的芳香和味道，要等豆荚经过蒸晒和干燥之后才会显露出来。所以一旦作物结果，知道如何处理也很重要。麦科勒姆解释说，收获后，要先将豆荚分类、分级，再将其放入热水中短暂浸泡以中止发酵，然后把豆荚置于大容器中“发汗”36至48小时。“这时绿色的豆荚开始变为棕色，香味也随之产生。”麦卡勒姆说。

From there， the beans undergo alternating periods of sun drying during the day and sweating at night， a journey that lasts between five and 15 days and ends with a period of slow drying. “This usually occurs indoors， in a well-ventilated room where beans are placed on racks，” McCollum says. “It can take up to 30 days， depending on the grade.” The entire process—from growing and pollinating to drying， curing and preparing for export—takes around one year.

之后，香草荚白天日晒、夜晚“发汗”，整个过程交替进行5至15天，最后还要慢慢干燥一段时间。“这一步通常在室内进行，我们会找个通风良好的房间，把豆荚放在架子上晾干。”麦科勒姆说，“根据豆荚等级不同，这个步骤最长可能需要30天的时间。”从种植、授粉到干燥、蒸晒加工和准备出口，整个过程大概一年之久。

But the reality is that very little of the vanilla we consume comes from those precious pods. Today， most of what we eat is actually artificial vanilla flavoring. In the late 19th century， scientists figured out how to derive vanillin16—the dominant compound that gives vanilla its signature aroma—from less expensive sources. Today， about 85 percent of vanillin comes from guaiacol17 that’s synthesized from petrochemicals18. This isn’t something many of us realize， because labeling can be confusing.

不过实际上，我们消费的香草里，只有极少部分来自这些珍贵的豆荚。我们如今食用的大部分“香草”都是人工制成的香草香精。19世纪晚期，科学家们发现了如何从相对低廉的原料中提取香草醛（赋予香草标志性芳香的主要化合物）。今天，大约85%的香草醛都提取自用石油化学物质合成的愈创木酚。这事情大多数人都不知道，因为食物标签往往含糊其辞。

In short， vanilla is the plant. Vanillin is one of up to 250 chemical compounds that make up the flavor we know as vanilla. So what’s the distinction？ Real extract is thicker and darker in color， and speckled with seed fragments. Vanillin produced naturally in the bean varies from place to place which results in different flavor profiles. Imitation vanillin extracted from lignin19 or guaiacol is very standard， rather than distinct.

简而言之，“香草”是这种植物，“香草醛”则是一种化合物，我们所熟知的香草风味是由包括香草醛在内的多达250种化合物构成的。那两者有什么区别呢？真正的香草提取物质地更浓、颜色更深，布满斑斑点点的香草籽碎片。在豆荚中天然形成的香草醛根据产地不同，生成的风味也各有特色。提取自木质素或者愈创木酚的人工合成香草醛，香型则固定统一，彼此毫无分别。

Right now， this demand for inexpensive vanilla flavoring comes with an environmental cost. According to research in the American Chemical Society’s journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research， the production of these compounds “creates a stream of wastewater that requires treatment before it can be released into surface water … catalysts currently used in the manufacturing of vanillin are polluting and can only be used one time.” In response， the authors have developed a new catalyst that separates out the vanillin but removes the polluting step. This catalyst could theoretically be re-used and， they hope， lead to more environmentally-friendly ways of manufacturing the alluring compound.

为了满足当今世界对廉价香草香精的需求，我们付出了环境的代价。美国化学学会期刊《工业与工程化学研究》刊登的一项研究表明，这些化合物的生产过程“会产生源源不断的废水，这些废水必须经过处理，才能排入地表水中……目前用于生产香草醛的催化剂会造成污染，还只能利用一次”。为此，文章作者开发了一种新型催化剂。用它能够分离出香草醛，并且去除污染环节。这种催化剂理论上可以循环使用，研究者们希望它能够带来新的生产方式，让生产香草醛这种诱人化合物的过程变得更加环保。

So is the answer to move away from real vanilla， and toward more environmentally friendly ways of scaling up production of artificial vanilla？ Assuming that we consumers are content with a simple vanilla flavor， perhaps. But we will undoubtedly lose something in the process.

那么，逐步放弃真正的香荚兰，转而以更环保的方式扩大人工香草醛的生产，会是我们的答案吗？如果我们消费者能满足于一种单一的香草风味，或许答案是肯定的。但在此过程中，我们也无疑会有所失去。

1 pollination 授粉。 2美国历史学家。其作品《八种风味：美国菜的秘史》（Eight Flavors： The Untold Story of American Cuisine）考据了美式菜肴中最常见的八种口味及其发展史。

3香荚兰，又称香草、香子兰等。 4 take to 喜欢上。 5 Mesoamerica中美洲。 6位于墨西哥东部沿海地区。 7 pre-Columbian 又称印第安时期，指美洲在明显受到来自欧洲文化影响前的历史时期。 8 follow suit 照做。 9纳瓦特语词汇，意思是“苦水”。这个词是chocolate的词源。

10 horticulturist园艺学家。 11无刺蜂属，广泛分布于热带地区。 12兰花蜂族，主要分布在中南美洲热带地区。 13位于印度洋西南部，临近马达加斯加岛。

14 cure（用熏、腌等方法）加工贮藏。 15 blanch 焯水，在热水中短暂浸泡。

16 vanillin香草醛，又称香兰素、香草精等。 17 guaiacol愈创木酚。 18 petrochemical 石油化学物质。

19 lignin木质素。