RE: Re: "Vanilla" ???

From: Madeleine Eid <eid_at_...>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:03:16 +0000

Well I knew it came from a pod from a tropical plant having used vanilla pods in cookery before (as well as vanilla extract from bottles) but I didn't know it was an orchid.

My other familiarity with vanilla is from certain dietary requirements prior to doing a particular test as vanilla is biochemically similar enough to interfere with the test results (as in a list of foods as long as my arm to abstain from during and the week before starting the test). Banana is one of the foods - which is why I knew vanilla was a tropical plant - apparently, one of the compounds it contains is vanillin (the 'active' bit of vanilla).

TTFN Maddy

> Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:13:02 -0000
> From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...>
>Subject: RE: Re: "Vanilla" ???
>
>
>> I guess that'd have to be an Americanism then.
>
>After a bit of hunting both hard-copy and on-line dictionaries, yes, it
>is. I've tracked it as far back as the early 1990s, and it seems to have
>mainly spread as a bit of computing jargon. So us hackers use it, and
>presumably you biologists don't - or rather, know the Real meaning, so
>keep to that.
>
>I never knew vanilla came from an orchid. I thought it came from a
>bottle labelled "vanilla extract". And as a supposed cook, I should be
>ashamed of myself :(