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The Preposterous History of Artificial Flavors, Part One: The Vanilla Problem · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. That's our super producer, the Willie Wonka
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History, mister Max Williams, the.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Snarsberrys taste like snosberries, and the Max Williams.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Ferry's. That's Noel Brown. I am Ben Bullen and Noel.
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  Speaker 1: Today we are pursuing one of our favorite things. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: behind the curtain, folks. This is something that we talk
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: about with our friends who were in Vogel bamb and
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  Speaker 1: Anti Reese of Savor constantly. It's food history. What's your
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  Speaker 1: favorite flavor? Do you have? Like a favorite flavor? I
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  Speaker 1: really like pistachio a lot.
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  Speaker 2: I like the nuts, I like the ice cream, I
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  Speaker 2: like the macaron I like it artificial. I like it
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  Speaker 2: freaking all natural. It's just a damn fine flavor, you
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  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, agreed, I'm partial to pineapple. But also I
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  Speaker 1: eat pretty much everything except for so far human flesh.
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  Speaker 1: So well, you know, hopefully they're working on this. Actually
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  Speaker 1: it turned out to not be true grown human flesh,
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  Speaker 1: but why the hell not if it's not hurting anybody.
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  Speaker 1: I guess it does become an ethical quandary at that point,
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  Speaker 1: like is it okay to eat human flesh just on
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  Speaker 1: a basic level if you're not having to murder the
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  Speaker 1: human or is there something abhorrent and against God about
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  Speaker 1: just inherently? Yeah, exactly bidden flavor because maybe it's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: It's probably chicken. But uh, you know, I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: about this episode today, Noel, because you and I have
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  Speaker 1: both recently traveled separately, uh, to Europe, and one thing
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  Speaker 1: that always stands out is just the different palette of
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  Speaker 1: fast food flavors or convenience store flavors. Like if you
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  Speaker 1: go to the United Kingdom, you can get potato chips
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  Speaker 1: in all sorts of strange flavorings, right, they're they're just
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: like you know what would taste like potato cheese and
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  Speaker 1: onion cheese.
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  Speaker 2: And but here's the thing, though, it's very culturally driven,
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  Speaker 2: because cheese an onion is just like a mega popular
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  Speaker 2: just flavor bass kind of I mean, yeah, not to
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  Speaker 2: rag too hard. In the UK, we know that our
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  Speaker 2: boy Heston bloom and Thal hails from there, and there
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  Speaker 2: certainly are the same. Yeah, there are some very thoughtful
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  Speaker 2: culinary minds out of the UK, but they get a
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  Speaker 2: bad rap is just like boiled sausage and you know beans,
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  Speaker 2: it's kind of whatever.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, an English national dishes curry. You might have
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  Speaker 1: been an empire, you might have.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I find that fascinating too. Like
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  Speaker 2: the Bondme sandwich I find to be among the perfect
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  Speaker 2: sandwiches of the world is totally a project, a product
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  Speaker 2: of imperialism, you know, because it's like it's this French
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  Speaker 2: bread roll, this baguette that's got like this you know,
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  Speaker 2: pork kind of roast slow roasted pork and a jalapeno,
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  Speaker 2: and like it's just it's.
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  Speaker 1: A weird hodgepodge that you wouldn't get if you didn't
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  Speaker 1: have people taking each other's countries over. You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: so weird. You say that because, as per usual, I
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: was up very late last night and I had Apocalypse
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  Speaker 1: Now in the background as I was working out, and
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  Speaker 1: it's just a cozy, cozy thing, right, Yeah, it just
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  Speaker 1: been things and so so they had you know, there's
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  Speaker 1: that great scene. I think it's only it may only
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  Speaker 1: be in the Reducs version, but there's that great scene
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  Speaker 1: where they see the French Indo China plantation and they anyway,
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  Speaker 1: this is sort of about imperialism, but it's also.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned the thing about the flavors and
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  Speaker 2: the you know, the artificial flav We're talking about artificial
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  Speaker 2: flavors the episode. Yes, I'll tell you who does it
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  Speaker 2: real well? Is is Japan or Asian countries? You to
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  Speaker 2: what's We're very lucky here in Atlanta to have access
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  Speaker 2: to places like the Buford Highway Farmers Market where they
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  Speaker 2: have I you not, most every flavor of weird Japanese
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  Speaker 2: lays available. Yeah, and it'll be things like shrimp, It'll
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  Speaker 2: be things like squid. It'll be things like barbecue, beef steak,
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  Speaker 2: and even the packaging is dope and weird and it
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  Speaker 2: comes in these weird little tubes sometimes and I just
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  Speaker 2: love everything about it. And there is, of course science
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  Speaker 2: behind this. A friend of mine came over for a
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  Speaker 2: barbecue the other night and brought.
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  Speaker 1: Cuban sandwich chips over that tasted like pickles and ham
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and been mustard, and they truly did. And it does
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you get into Willy Wonka territory where when Violet Beauregard
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  Speaker 1: eats the pill she's like I could feel the soup's
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  Speaker 1: running down my throat, you know, like it really starts
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  Speaker 1: to approach that level of magic. It's all good till
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you hit the blueberries right exactly, never quite never quite
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  Speaker 1: not nicked that one. Let's watch Willy Wonka later. That's
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  Speaker 1: that's great, the good one, though not the cursed one
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with Chap and the teeth. We know the one we're
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: talking about, and we know what's technically called Charlie and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the Chocolate Factory. Do you think the Timothy Schallomey one
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  Speaker 1: was fun? Though it's by the folks that brought us Paddington.
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  Speaker 1: I know it got a bad rap because out of
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  Speaker 1: context he does seem goofy and a little try hard.
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  Speaker 1: But I thought it was a lovely film, and I
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  Speaker 1: loved that the same guy from the Newest Dune adaptation,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Timothy shallome is don't be coy with yes
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  Speaker 1: it is. He's very He's very hot, very hot young man.
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  Speaker 1: Right now. I love when your voice goes arch, don't
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  Speaker 1: be coy. I also love that you mentioned Japan, because
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  Speaker 1: Japan is streets ahead in so many parts of modern society,
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  Speaker 1: including of course, toilet technology and for our purposes today,
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  Speaker 1: the KitKat formula, they went absolutely bonkers. They have flavors
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  Speaker 1: of KitKat that are not edible flavors, stuff like ocean
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  Speaker 1: dream or whatever. I'm making that one up, but it's
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  Speaker 1: probably real. It does feel as though it might resemble
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  Speaker 1: a air freshener more than a nice, delicious chocolate a tree.
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  Speaker 1: But stuff like whole grain biscuit, Like what if we
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  Speaker 1: had a chocolate bar that tasted like a cracker that
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  Speaker 1: kind of already is a cracker wrapped in a It's
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  Speaker 1: very meta and I love it. If you go to
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  Speaker 1: Japanhall dot com you can get a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: stuffmail or at and it ain't cheap.
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  Speaker 2: And if you go to Beuford Highway Farmer's Market here
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  Speaker 2: in Atlanta, these bags of these bonkers kitkats are very
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  Speaker 2: small and quite expensive.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah you can. You can also learn more about
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  Speaker 1: kit katsuh with our again our pals over at our
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  Speaker 1: peer podcast or sister podcast saver h. Look, it's a
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  Speaker 1: brave new world of KitKat flavors and it's all due
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  Speaker 1: to the science of artificial flavors. No, how would we
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  Speaker 1: describe artificial flavors?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's it's just it's food science, you know, in
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  Speaker 2: the same way we have seasonings where you combine different
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  Speaker 2: types of naturally occurring substances, you know, or perhaps unnaturally occurring,
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  Speaker 2: like MSG, which is a chemical compound that creates that
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  Speaker 2: third flavor hit the umami, which I think we all love.
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  Speaker 2: And we also know that MSG has gotten a bad
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  Speaker 2: rap do no small part to racism. Shout out to
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: our episode on Chinese restaurants. Yeah, and the.
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  Speaker 1: Simpsons, but thank you for referencing us.
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  Speaker 2: Know that there was a demonization of Chinese restaurants in
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  Speaker 2: the United States and that led to the demonization of
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  Speaker 2: MSG monosodium glutamate. But yeah, I mean, artificial flavoring is
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  Speaker 2: just a more weaponized, science y version of cooking.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: I think both of us in our kind of we
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  Speaker 2: don't do this as much anymore as we used to.
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  Speaker 2: But we used to go on the road and do
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  Speaker 2: these like sales pitch things. And I think both of us,
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  Speaker 2: either together separately, ended up at some kind of flavor
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  Speaker 2: lab where we got a tour of the back rooms
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  Speaker 2: and it's it's what you think. It's folks in white
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  Speaker 2: lab coats with like microscopes and big old synthesis machines,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm no scientists here, but it is science. And
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  Speaker 2: then you may recall the scene from Breaking Bad at Madrigal,
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  Speaker 2: the Crazy Big Empire, where you got the CEO taste
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  Speaker 2: testing these French sauces for their one of their chicken
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  Speaker 2: franchise or their chicken chains, and the scientists are presenting it.
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  Speaker 1: They're not chefs, they're scientists. And without spoiling things for
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  Speaker 1: the Shakespearean level show Breaking Bad, which is, by the way,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Anthony hopkins favorite show. He says a lot. He wrote
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  Speaker 1: a letter about it without spoiling things. I believe that
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  Speaker 1: Gustav Fring genuinely cared about the chicken, and I think
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: that's a very important character distinction. He gotta start, he
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  Speaker 1: gotta start with the chicken. You know, yes, Sar, chicken
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  Speaker 1: came before the meth. I think you know the math
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  Speaker 1: was just like obviously made more money. But he always
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  Speaker 1: cared about quality control and cleanliness. You know that episode
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  Speaker 1: we made that poor kid scrub the friars until his
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  Speaker 1: hands bland. I mean, not a good guy, but you
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  Speaker 1: gotta to respect his attention to detail. Not a great guy,
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  Speaker 1: but he had a code. You know what I mean
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  Speaker 1: like Ronald Reraken by the way, if you're missing and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: what is it Gian Carlo Esposito in an arch type
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: role like that, highly recommend you check out The Boys,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: which is a Bonker's superhero thing, not for the Fate
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of Heart or the Pearl clutchy amongst us. It's very
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: raunchy and borderline pornographic at times, but he plays a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: fring esque kind of evil overlord character and he kicks butt.
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  Speaker 1: He plays kind of our boss a little bit, a
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  Speaker 1: little bit. Artificial flavors are are a win win for
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people because they are a cost effective
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  Speaker 1: way for these flavor scientists that we just described to
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  Speaker 1: make something taste like strawberry or snawsberry. I let that
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  Speaker 1: part out, yep, yeah, without having to use actual strawberries,
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  Speaker 1: without being dependent upon seasonal harvest nor the weather. When
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  Speaker 1: everything goes according to plan. This is great. But our
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  Speaker 1: question day is how did this whole artificial flavor thing
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  Speaker 1: happen in the first place? Like why does grape candy
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  Speaker 1: taste so unlike grapes? And what hell is a blue raspberry?
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  Speaker 2: And why do I love me a grape knee high?
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  Speaker 2: But I don't really care for a grape off the show.
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  Speaker 2: You know what I mean, I really and I like
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  Speaker 2: a banana flavored popsicle. I'm not the biggest fan of
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  Speaker 2: a banana.
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  Speaker 1: Ah. Great, that's gonna play the whole banana quandary.
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  Speaker 2: But boil boy, should we just dive right in this
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  Speaker 2: is let's do it, let's do let's do some science.
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  Speaker 1: Yes please? Okay, So we talked about umammy. The tongue.
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  Speaker 1: The human tongue has taste receptors. These taste receptors are
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  Speaker 1: the reason you prefer some foods to others, and they're
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  Speaker 1: they're like five basic ones. Umami is the controversial one.
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  Speaker 1: But we know there's sour, salty, bitter, sweet, and this
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  Speaker 1: sight smell taste of food. It stimulates the production of
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  Speaker 1: saliva of different chemicals in the stomach. You, if you
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  Speaker 1: are human, are designed to prioritize some taste over others.
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  Speaker 1: And that's entirely because of evolution. For most of human history,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: humans were always about to starve.
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  Speaker 2: So that's a very good point bend, and it wasn't
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  Speaker 2: as much of a luxury as it was about like
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  Speaker 2: just getting those calories and making sure you didn't die.
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  Speaker 2: So as evolution and you know, the evolution of science
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  Speaker 2: and technology became more a thing you were able to
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  Speaker 2: sort of be able to prioritize preference and aside, I
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  Speaker 2: like the way this tastes versus that, and you could
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  Speaker 2: like pick and choose. I was just going to ask,
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  Speaker 2: real quid, do you think people who are really picky
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  Speaker 2: eaters who I have a few of in my life
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes it drives me bonkers, are they is? Is
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  Speaker 2: there something about their actual equipment that leads to that.
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  Speaker 2: I know sometimes people have issues with texture and it
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  Speaker 2: can be a combination, but some people maybe just taste
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  Speaker 2: things too strongly or it makes them It makes them
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  Speaker 2: they don't like the way it tastes because something hits
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  Speaker 2: them too is too.
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  Speaker 1: Sour, too sweet, too savory. Quite possibly, Yeah, there there
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  Speaker 1: are psychological, neurological, and physiological factors in all of those.
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  Speaker 1: Like we know there is a real life genre of superpower,
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  Speaker 1: super taster, super taste or so uh, those folks will
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  Speaker 1: those folks have a very Princess in the Pea approach
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to things like capsaius in or salt. Princess in the
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  Speaker 1: Pea being the Western fairy tale about the princess who
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: was so sensitive that she could lay on one hundred
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: mattresses or something and still feel a piece.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: A tiny p And you can also kind of bring
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: it back around to another Western fairy tale of Goldilocks
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and the Three bears, referring to the perfect amount, the
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  Speaker 2: perfect level of spice or seasoning, which would be that
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  Speaker 2: Goldilocks zone.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing is, so every animal on the planet,
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  Speaker 1: so far as we know, prioritizes some sources of nutrition
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  Speaker 1: over others, whether that's a carnivore, whether that's an herbivore,
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  Speaker 1: an omnivore, or things like the koala or the panda bear,
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  Speaker 1: which mostly eat one sort of thing bamboo or eucalyptus leaves.
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  Speaker 1: We know that the big difference between humans all the
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  Speaker 1: other animals on this planet is that the human proved
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  Speaker 1: capable of not just finding their favorite flavors in the wild,
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  Speaker 1: but also creating those flavors or the semblance of them
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  Speaker 1: for similarite. For most of human history, people tended to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: eat what we would call fresh food, the kind of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: stuff you find in the produce section of the infamous
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Beauford Highway farmers market. That's right, Yeah, you know, just
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  Speaker 1: your regular old fruit and veg but then as the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: need to keep thinking, there's a couple. It's interesting because
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  Speaker 1: a lot of these techniques were established or were started
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: because of a need to preserve things, but they also
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  Speaker 1: affect the flavor. And once you get a taste of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: something that's been fermented that's got a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: that funk to it, you can't really go back if
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  Speaker 1: it hits you and you like it. So this is
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: when you really start to see technol food technology that
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  Speaker 1: was designed for one purpose starting to gradually change the
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  Speaker 1: way people perceive flavor. Yeah, it's so nuts. You know
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  Speaker 1: what we got to do. You know, We've got to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: give everybody the Food and Drug Administration's definition of artificial flavoring.
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  Speaker 1: You'll see how complicated this issue becomes in the history
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  Speaker 1: when Noel, could you give us the quote because it's surreal. Absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: the FDA has this to say.
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  Speaker 2: The term artificial flavor or artificial flavoring means any substance
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  Speaker 2: the function of which is to impart flavor which is
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  Speaker 2: not derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable
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  Speaker 2: or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf,
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  Speaker 2: or similar plant material, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products
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  Speaker 2: or fermentation products thereof ding.
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  Speaker 1: Ding ding ding ding ding ding. But that's its own category, right,
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  Speaker 1: because it transforms the flavor of these things into something
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  Speaker 1: else entirely mm hmm. And this is not an inherently
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  Speaker 1: bad idea, right, artificial flavor, So either to our point earlier,
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  Speaker 1: it can yield some fantasmical, very interesting combinations of texture
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  Speaker 1: and flavor that can be very appealing and dare I
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: say exciting, right, do you have a candy bar that
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: tastes like a beetroot that can be you know, again,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I mentioned Heston Blumenthal. He had a TV series for
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a while where he would kind of approximate the food
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of different eras, like he would do like medieval stuff
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And a big thing that he likes to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: do is like disguise something as something else where it'll
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: be it looks like a piece of fruit, but it's
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: actually made of meat. And there's something your brain does,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: sort of like when you think you're gonna take a
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: sip of soda water but it's actually sprite or vice versa.
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  Speaker 1: Your brain kind of recoils and that's not good.
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  Speaker 2: But you can weaponize that in a way that is
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: interesting and exciting, and artificial flavoring is a cool way
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: to do that.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Also shout out to our buddy
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Richard Blaze. That guy's living in the future boy at
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the gastronomic level. The Blaze me. We were on his
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: podcast Food Court once we talked about bacon and sausage,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and I didn't know him super super well before that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: as a personality, but since then he's blown up, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of his Next Level Chef series
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: with Gordon Ramsey, who I've been a fan of for
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: many years. It's sort of this dystopian like they've got
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to like grab food off this lowering platform or whatever,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and like some of the teams are in the dungeon,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: which is the crappiest kitchen. There's the middle kitchen, which
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: is just fine, in the upper one, which is like
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the elite kitchen. But I think it's a really clever show.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It's based on joy film that has to be there's
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: like a European film that is very much a dystopian,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: quite violent thing. They don't reference the film in the show,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure somebody saw that film.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I can't remember, I'll try to remember what it's called. Yeah,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: our buddy fluency. Our buddy Richard also made my day
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: when he so he is one of those guys at
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the forefront of gastronomic science, right, he's combining chemistry with
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: fine dining. And he recently we both saw this. Uh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I think we have sent it to you. You saw it,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you posted it. The popcorn thing. He recently taught me
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: that you can just use a straw at a movie
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: theater popcorn butter dispensary to even to better distribute the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: butter through the popcorn. The guys in the future man
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and also you lest you be thinking, ew, that's gross.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: No, a straw is what's the word like, it's sanitary
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: because it's it's wrapped so you can like unwrap it,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: don't touch the end you put into the common little
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: nozzle and then you just touch the middle and then
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: you're you're totally clear.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You haven't contaminated anything. By the way, that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Film is called The Platform Spanish is from twenty nineteen,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and it is a very bleak dystopian film that they
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: made into quite an intense and delightful cooking show. But
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to your point about the butter too. That's artificial flavor
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: at work too.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is that movie theater popcorn butter that
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: tastes like no butter I ever put in my monk.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Yet it has the feel of butter, doesn't it. Yes,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the taste of butter exactly. So I love this idea
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of the word you used earlier was perfect disfluency. Back
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages, it was an historical flex to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: make something taste different than it looked like it would taste.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: These were proprietary secret recipes for you know, dukes and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: kings and emperors and of course queens and empresses and duchesses.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: The recipes were sometimes put together jumbled into these collections
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: called books of Secrets, so they were like food spells.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: We know. Before the first modern artificial flavors became a thing,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians would astract scents and oils from plants. They
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: would make essential oils. So what we can learn from
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: this is that people were always searching for the next
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: great goostation thrill. And it's a pickle, right, because for
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: most of human history, if you wanted to make a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: dish taste like strawberries, you have one option you had
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to find and add some strawberries. Humanity took that personally,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and that's why the story of modern synthetic flavoring all
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: goes back to vanilla. Vanilla is it is it made
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: from beaver anal Glands ben or is that just an
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: urban legend. Well, it's there's a lot to it some time,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: but this one maybe we should. Yeah, you know how
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in American English, the term vanilla just came to mean
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: like playing or boring, which I think is a little unfair,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: because honestly, a good vanilla is really complex.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: One made with vanilla beans's actually got little specks of
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: the stuff in there, yes, or even like a fancier
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: one that it urged alatto, where it's got like crazy
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: cool texture too, and it's not just overly sweet. I
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: think vanilla gets an unfair rap as like being basic,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: but it really is quite complex.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It's just something like that's gotten attached to that. Dude.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: This reminds me of our episode on pineapples as a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: flex when people would just rent pineapples. That's right. Yeah,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: vanilla is more than anything cartoonishly inconvenient. We know it
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: comes from meso America. The Aztecs used it to flavor chocolate.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: When the Europeans arrived in the Americas, they loved flexing
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: with vanilla. It was the culinary version of a rolex
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: at this time, and it became something that you would
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: never see poor people or even common people consuming, because
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it was a pain in the butt to grow. It
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was crazy expensive. Part of the reason it's so expensive
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: even now is because the vanilla beans are collected from
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the vanilla orchid, and this little guy only opens up
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like one day of the year. It's got a very
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: short window of time. If it doesn't pollinate during that time,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: then it doesn't make a vanilla being. And the only
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: thing that pollinated it for a long time was a
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: particular type of bee, like one guy. One little bee
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Guy's job is to make vanilla And while.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I'm sure under appropriate lab conditions or greenhouse type conditions,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you know, with great care and expertise, this could be accomplished.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, you know you can by vanilla beans.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Would they come in a tiny jar sort of like
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: saffron threats? You know, very very expensive And.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: One could argue that, yes, of an ice cream made
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: with real vanilla bean is an absolute treat, But you
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: could also do a Pepsi challenge type situation with the
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: artificial version.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And possibly not quite be able to tell the difference
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: if it's done well. Yeah, yeah. Now, for most of
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: its history, the vanilla orchide could only be cultivated in
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: southeastern Mexico, which is home to the melipona bee, which
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: was the only thing that could pollinate this delicious, troublesome thing.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: To mane, I'm wrong.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe it would be very difficult to do it under
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: you know, controlled circumstances.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think you're onto something.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe it seems I don't know this for a fact,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: but it just seems like these days, with you know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: specialty greenhouses and all of that kind of stuff, you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: could import the bees and you know, basically, what's the word,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: kind of duplicate or you know, simulate the exact climate
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: conditions and make it work.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And part of the reason why vanilla's a synonym for
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: boring today goes back to the story of a guy
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: named Edmund Albius, twelve years old, enslaved in a French
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: colony about five hundred miles east of Madagascar, this kid
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: discovered how to replace the bee hand pollinating the orchid
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: by pressing, Yeah, by pressing the stigma and the anther
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: together using a stick. So this is still very intensive,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: laborious work, but it created a vanilla market in Madagascar
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: which now produces the majority of the world's natural vanilla.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But if you go in a grocery store, folks, honestly,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: less than one percent of anything vanilla flavored comes from
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: actual vanilla, and you could tell the difference to your point, Noel,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: because the stuff that uses actual vanilla from the actual
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: vanilla bean, it's insanely expensive. Vanilla is the world's second
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: most expensive spice after saffron. You nailed it. Yeah, I know.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It was cool going to Spain and going to some
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: of those markets there, Like I can't remember, there's a
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: really really big one in the Laramblac district and I'm
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: totally spacing on the name. It's very very popular, huge,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: incredible a selection of spices, and you could get at
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: least little jars of saffron, but they'd be like twenty
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: five euro you know, for just like a little tiny jar.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: But it's also a really intensely strong flavor. You only
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: need a couple of.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Threats over using saffron it's like trust, it's like it's overkill. Yeah,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and it's a waste. Yeah. Just follow the Persians. The
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Persians understand how to cook with saffron, you know what
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, make that rice's rice. Now we have the problem,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and this is gonna show us the larger history of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: artificial flavoring. There's something everybody wants, so there's a lot
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of demand and there are clear supply chain issues. You
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: just can't make enough vanilla, even with human intervention. It
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: takes too long. So in the late eighteen hundreds, a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: guy named Nicholas Theodore Gobli isolates the organic compound that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: is the main mover of that flavor we call vanilla.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He names it vanillaan vanilla, yeah, vanilla.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: The discovery there paves the way to a little bit later.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: German sciencest Ferdinand Tiemann and Willhelm Harman are able to
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: synthesize vanilla from the bark of a of the humble
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: pine tree, which is very I guess maybe I don't know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: you think about pine sap having sort of a savory,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: almost mentee kind of flavor. I wonder, I'm just wondering
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: if it has anything to do with it. So they
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: opened the very first vanilla factory in eighteen seventy five.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: So at this point, what was once a very rare,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: sought after, highly expensive ingredient is now accessible to everybody.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And this is probably when you start seeing it a
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: little bit overused, and it probably leads to the association
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of vanilla with like basics, basic flavor. Yeah, and it
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: becomes more democratized, more accessible. It's no longer just the
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: food of the aristocrats. You know, picture some chimney sweep
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: out in London, say you know, bloy me vanilithan me exactly.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I think we should take this as an opportunity really
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: quickly to bust a bit of a myth. I mentioned
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: beaver anal secretions earlier. There have been in the past
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: sort of alarmist suggestions that artificial the modern artificial vanilla
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: flavor that we know today. You might buy the store
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: called Vanilla Extract, which is, you know, a successor to
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: this vanilla, and I think you know, it's not exactly
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: the same, but.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: That's where we've ended up today. Is made using a.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Secretion from the anal glands of beavers known as castorium,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: and it apparently it is used or has been used
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: in the past as a food additive, also known as
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I believe it's not the same as castor oil or
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the oil of the castor bean is castorium.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It's something separate.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It's a yellowish brown, kind of pungent liquid with a strong.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Odor that beavers hold in this sack that's located in
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: this cavity between their pelvis and the base of their tail,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and they spray it, that's right, And they spray it when,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you know how. And the cats it's like it's not
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: pe that that old chestnut, it's something else, and they
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: mark their territory. And it has been used as an
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: additive in things like perfume, uh, you know, because it's
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: it's got these notes. They give you kind of like
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a like a leathery sort of musky odor, and they
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: have been in the past you use as food added is.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But today almost never will a regular you know, consumer
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: or grocery shopper come across anything that contains castorium. Yeah,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: because there are thankfully some more regulations involved. But I
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: love that you're bringing this up, because who hasn't been
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: just nose deep into beaver's button. Thought, this reminds me
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of vanilla, these fun bags.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: And the funny thing is is also it's it wouldn't
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: be artificial, would it's.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's organic. It comes sprays out of a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: beaver's But we have to go back to the FDA definition.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I don't see. Oh well, they say, they say it's
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: generally safe. They do recognize it, and they refer to
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: it simply as a natural flavoring. I can't. At some
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: times you've seen, if you've ever seen lists of ingredients,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you will sometimes just see natural flavorings. You might call
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: that into question because Snope says it's mostly false that
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: caastorium is used as commonly used as a food additive.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Also check out our stuff they don't want you to know.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Episode on the cartoonish problem with the phrase natural flavoring,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the synthetic vanilla sources going back to vanilla, Yeah, come
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: from all kinds of places. Eugenol, which is a chemical
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: compound you find in clove oil, so for anybody smoking clothes,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: sort of spoken word, open mic. You got a vanilla
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: thing going on, and then something called lignin, which you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: could find in plants, wood pulp, and cowfeces. Fun, fun,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: fun stuff, In short, vanilla is the plant. Vanilla Linton
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is one of up to two hundred and fifty different
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: chemical compounds that make up the flavor we call vanilla.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And with this story, with this discovery, we see the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: larger story of artificial flavoring in general.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: And today you do have vanilla available, that is what
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: it is, still that pure vanilla, or there's an even
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: stronger form of it called ethyl vanilla, which are both available.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Those are two options. Or there is vanilla extract, which
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: is derived from real vanilla. So it's almost like a concentrate.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I guess it's like the essential oil of vanilla. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: think that's right. So maybe it isn't the same. I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: think a constant is largely artificial.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: But I'm always been a little confused, like when orange
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: juice says not from concentrate. Something in concentrate is real,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: or it's derived from the real thing. It's not just
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: whipped up in a lab.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: It's called orange juice. Is so weird? Yeah, that might
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: be anothertographer for another day. Do you like yours with
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: some pulp ben or you a pulp free? Guard? To you? Like?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Oh the pulp? You know what? I'm just happy to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: be around the juice. Okactually, that's one of my first
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: published short stories is entirely about orange juice. So I'm
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: kind of biased, weird. Sometimes the juice is worth the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: squeeze ben. Yeah, but you can't get lost in the juice. Wait,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: lost in the sauce, yeah, or the juice juice sauce interchangeable.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And this is a two part episode. This often happens
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: when all of us Noel, Max, myself and you begin
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: exploring the history of food. We got soa to vanilla
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and beavers and cowfeecs right that we didn't even get
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to the Crystal Palace exhibition in London. That might have
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to be part two. Oh man, Yeah, I mean you know, look,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: we love talking about food in general, we love eating food,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: we love the history of food science. So I think
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: it's only right and natural, not artificial at all, to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: make this a two parter, because we are gonna we're
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: gonna have some fun callbacks about vanilla, because, as you
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: can tell ridiculous historians, that is sort of the like
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the first step in this flavor synthesis revolution that then
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: opens wide up. We teased banana.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: There's a whole story in that that really should and
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: could be an episode in and of itself. We're going
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: to talk about that as well as the idea of like,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you know, the what essentially is like flavor deep fakes.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ooh, I'm glad to pick it up. That phrase,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: was that going too far? No? Not at no.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: That is a ben ism right there, and I think
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it's absolutely accurate because it does get to the point
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: where we're like, not no longer are we talking about
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: just the using artificial flavoring as a way of saving
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: some money, but almost as a way of counterfeiting.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, intrigue, cliffhangers, high stakes. You love to see if folks,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: we love that you're here. Thank you, as always so
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Big thanks to Max the Free Train.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Williams are super producer, and a big big thanks to
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: our composer. I still can't believe we have a composer,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who made this slap and Bob, Hey, Nolan,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: have you talked to Alex recently? How's he doing? It's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: been a minute. He was in town for a bit
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and we hung out a few times. But no, he's
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: he's back roaming the wild West's class.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: He's the United States Classic Alex But we love that
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: guy huge thanks to Chris Frosciotis n Heaves, Jeff Coats
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizzor.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Who is in fact books. We got to book that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: We got to book that guy. Now he's hot, he's
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: in demand. Also aj Bahamas Jacob's the Puzzler, who I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: know we will have back again very soon as well,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: hopefully for that oft promised quiz slash Puzzle Off Yes Yes,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: which we have sort of voluntold both the Puzzler and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the quizt just participated. So we also want to thank
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: all the hard working flavor scientists that we can't wait
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: for you to join us for Part two of the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: preposterous History of artificial flavors. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.