Artificial Decadence: Vanilla
Introduction - What is Vanilla?
Vanilla is a spice derived from an orchid by the same name. The spice itself is derived from the mature fruits of the plant that turn a vibrant black when dried. The name vanilla is derived from the Spanish word vainilla, meaning “little pod” roughly. The diminutive of vaina itself is derived from the Latin word vagina, meaning sheath, and describes the shape of the pod.
Vanilla orchids are not self-pollinating, and pollination is required for the flower to bear fruit. In nature, there have only been two definitive pollinators documented: orchid bees and the western honey bee. This meant that for most of history, vanilla was only foraged in the wild. That was until 1841, when the 12-year-old slave Edmond Albius, living on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered that the flower could be hand-pollinated. Hand pollination enabled the global cultivation of the plant.
Today, three major species of vanilla are grown globally, all derived from a species originally found in Mesoamerica, including parts of modern-day Mexico. Today, as well, all commercial vanilla production is hand-pollinated by humans. Historically, in Mexico, the dried beans of the vanilla orchid were used along with cocoa to make a drink called “xocolatl”, the predecessor to modern hot chocolate, and when the exotic spice was first introduced to Europe it was mostly used as an additive to chocolate and would remain so for about a hundred years before eventually a creative apothecary in the employ of Queen Elizabeth I would begin experimenting with it. Around the 18th century, 200 years after having been brought to Europe, the French started using vanilla to flavour ice cream.
This is perhaps the most common application today as well, but we don’t view the spice like they did in the past. Today, the word “vanilla” has become synonymous with boring, bland and refers to the simplest form of something. This idea comes from the vanilla-flavoured ice cream, where nothing but vanilla is added. But only vanilla? Vanilla is a rare plant, one that is exotic and incredibly difficult and tedious to cultivate, and to this day remains the second most expensive spice in the world. So why did this royal orchid, affiliated with wealth and the decadence of the upper classes, become such a trivial and ordinary flavour? This is what this text will be discussing. The short answer is: artificial flavouring.
It’s estimated that about 95% of all “vanilla” products are flavoured with vanillin derived from lignin rather than the fruits of the vanilla orchid, which also contain vanillin. The process for synthesising vanillin, which made it a common good, was using wood pulp waste from the paper industry, and by 1981, a single pulp and paper mill in Thorold, Canada, supplied 60% of the world market for synthetic vanillin. Today, 15% of synthesised vanillin is made from wood waste, and 85% is synthesised in a two-step process from compounds used in petroleum refining.
The status of one of the world’s most luxurious spices as ordinary and boring is symbolic of modern life today. It illustrates an age of decadence and wealth previously unimaginable to the common man; however, it’s not an age of authentic wealth and well-being, as it’s completely of an artificial and synthetic nature. This is true for many aspects of our lives: not just the vanilla in our food, perfumes and language.
Artificial Decadence - Superficial Superimposition
Most people can’t distinguish between authenticity and artificiality: we are fooled daily and manipulated by corporations, salespeople and advertising, and more than anything, we fool ourselves. Not because we deserve true decadence, but because we think we do, and we think we are owed the right to enjoy the luxuries of life, we’ve become spoiled ingrates. We see it in almost all aspects of life, and how we turn a blind eye to the superficial nature of it all, just so that we can enjoy the luxuries and comforts of modern life.
It’s how we can fool ourselves into thinking an authentic diet of a caveman was overflowing with precious meats, and how we can think of cities like Dubai as the peak of human ingenuity. We have so much artificial richness that we can’t distinguish between the real and the fake. The designer clothing we spend a month’s pay on is all made in the same factory, or it’s all cheaper knockoffs. The overconsumptive nature of our diets is fueled by modern slavery and industrial pollution, and we don’t see it, and we’re not grateful for what we have. We’re happy without fake vanilla ice cream, and we’re content with our lives being held up by the backs of people below us, whose bones we’ll grind down and feed our cattle with.
We’ve artificially engineered a world which not only supports a large population but also exploits the majority of it and leaves the rest content with their perceived well-being. This is the true danger about artificial decadence, that it leads to us losing sympathy, compassion and instead developing egotism. All sins arise from selfish desire, and when we become blind to how well off we are, we allow envy, gluttony and other evils to infect our character. We’re never content with what we have, and we always hunger for more.
This endless appetite has turned one of the most precious spices in the world into something bland and ordinary, and it’s not only applicable to vanilla but to all of our foods. They’re more engineered than ever; it’s more fat, more sugar, and simple ingredients are no longer enough. It’s ultra-processed and megarefined foods that we consume at large, and a single, triangular, intensely-cheesy chip holds more cheese than a medieval peasant could ever imagine - the explosion of flavour would positively turn their world inside out, or they would spit it out. We become accustomed and acclimated to our environments; that’s part of human nature, and that can be dangerous if we don’t ever stop to reflect on the lives we live.
Artificial decadence is dangerous because it leads us to an illusion where we take things for real and take them for granted. Vanilla isn’t something plain or even boring, but it becomes that when it’s synthesised and becomes a common good. Instead of appreciating the availability of these luxury goods and the fact that we can enjoy good, authentic vanilla ice cream, we pinch pennies, and we demand to have the ice cream, and we’re willing to pretend that we’re lords and ladies and go along with superimposing this illusory and fake richness on many different aspects of our lives.
We become judgmental, maybe not as individuals but as groups, and through collective pressure, the people who are not conforming to the latest trends and fads are ostracised, sometimes kicked out of the group. If you just have plain vanilla, you’re a boring and bland person, but if you get on the latest Dubai-chocolate, labubu-infused soy mocha latte with matcha, then you’re a cool individual. Here’s the thing as well: most of these trends are synthetic copies of original ideas; they become trends when they’re able to be mass-replicated and mass-produced, and in some way, we only experience a synthetic aspect of life.
We live vicarious luxury lives, taking loans for cars we can’t afford, we spend more than we need, and we waste things. We waste food, we waste time, and we do all of it because we’re complacent in our ingratitude, and we’re still hungering for more, for something new. This endless search has led us to where we are, and we are constantly onboarding new people. Too often do we just mindlessly go along, and we don’t think and reflect about our behaviour or what we have, and that’s when one of the world’s most expensive and exotic flowers can become synonymous with the ordinary, with the plain and the boring.
Turning Ordinary to Extraordinary
Vanilla is linguistically the perfect symbolism for the superficial decadence we live in. Because it illustrates how nonchalant we have become, as a society and as a culture, when it comes to the things we enjoy in our everyday lives. It highlights with clarity the superfluous nature of our lives and how we take it for granted.
We enjoy luxuries and privileges that most of our ancestors never experienced, and yet that isn’t enough for us, unless we cultivate gratitude. That seems to be the solution to the problems this kind of artificial decadence brings.
The solution isn’t to uproot modern agriculture or to only eat real vanilla, but a step in the right direction is to recognise the wealth that surrounds you, and to not only be grateful for that but to make decisions that improve your life and the life of people around you. To be aware of the things that uphold things, and to maybe more critically view and consider some of the luxuries in life. There’s more to life than material goods, and there’s more happiness to find in a hovel filled with genuineness than in a superficial and empty mansion.
When our consumption and our decadence go unchecked, it’s easy for us to become complacent, spoiled and arrogant. It’s how vanilla becomes something plain, and ordinary - it’s taken for granted. This is the real danger of the lives we live, not the fact that we sometimes treat ourselves, or that we don’t deserve anything luxurious or good in life. But it’s when we become callous and spoiled, blind to the suffering of others, that our hearts grow cold.
The problem isn’t that we have it better than others, or than what people in the past did; this is the very purpose of progress: to improve. But progress unchecked just means moving forward, and forward isn’t always the right path. If we blindly move along, we might one day find ourselves walking over a cliff. So enjoy your vanilla - real or artificial and take the moment to appreciate that you live in a time where something so extraordinary can be so common. So many great things are easily accessible, but don’t forget about the real thing.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by artificiality and superficial trickery; demand your right as a human being to the right of an authentic life. Discern between superficial scarcity and authentic rarity - recognise the worth of the real and don’t blindly chase trends, and don’t be so desperate to fit in that you let it compromise authenticity. Authentic living is more important than artificial decadence.
