Vanilla is one of the kings of spices, along with saffron and cardamon, second in price only to saffron. Confronted with a vanilla pod for the first time, you could be a bit daunted, but you have a treat in store. Take a sharp knife, hold the pod flat on a surface and run the knife along the vanilla pod, slicing it into two, as you might a chile. Inside there are tiny black seeds. Take the knife and run the back of it along the two exposed inner sides of the pod. Thousands of tiny seeds will roll up the blade as you do so. Scrape these carefully into the mix you are making. The next wonderful thing is that you can pop the pod in with the mix as well, remove it after use, dry it and add it to a pot of sugar for divine sweetener for strawberries or sour fruits.
The vanilla plant is related to the orchids and is native to Mexico, to which country its production was limited until 1841 when a method of hand-pollinating it was discovered by a 12-year old French slave in Réunion. Before that the plant would only grow in Mexico because pollination was carried out by a particular species of bee found only there. The most common available vanilla worldwide is Vanilla plantifolia or 'Madagascar-Bourbon' vanilla, produced in Madagascar and Indonesia. Cortés brought it to western Europe from the New World.
