historical cookery: vanilla?

[hudebnik]

According to this article, vanilla was in culinary use in Bronze Age Israel.

Huh.

Comments

[hlinspjalda]

Well, I'll be damned, on two accounts.

First, I did not know you could get vanilla in the Old World at all.

Second, why did my RSS feed of the same site not feed me this article?

Awesome. Many thanks for posting this!

[hudebnik]

Yes, I thought it was strictly New World. If I read the article right, the most common kind of vanilla today comes from Mexico, but other closely-related species that produce essentially the same aromatic compounds are native to East Africa.