I did have a real hot take written for this week... it followed the typical popular hot take formula, a random statement to establish a list of some sort packed with inside jokes, verbal abuse of the show hosts, digs at Massive Report and general nonsense... this week I was doing celebrity look alikes, and before you ask... yes Morgan you were Ru Paul, Greg was Steve Irwin, and Massive Report was Bill Cosby.

Anyways after my 18th whiskey last night I had an epiphany a way to stop u/AGSattack (aka Baron Trump)...

You cut off the source of his power, up until this point Aces Radio has read every top level comment posted in the reddit thread. But what if the precedent was sat that you didn't have to read every post... then in the future you could have the standing to skip any submission by u/AGSattack, thus stopping him and winning the war. I mean its either that, the Borg, or a cage full of meat and a ton of dogs.

So... Morgan you can stop reading this hot take right now set the precedent, take away u/AGSattacks power and kill him... or you can keep reading and read an essay about the exoticism of vanilla and why we use the phrase, plain as vanilla.

On the edge of the Indian Ocean, east of the African nation of Mozambique, lies the island of Madagascar. Eighty thousand farmers on the island tend to the needs of one specific orchid. With no natural pollinators on the island, the entire crop has to be pollinated by hand within a window of just a few hours after the orchid has flowered, which only happens once a year. If pollination is successful, 260 days later the fruits or pods of the orchid can be harvested, and then they have to be dried and cured over the next six months. After the pods are cured the race is on. Buyers from Europe and the United States, carrying suitcases of cash, flying private jets purposely routed through different countries to hide the buyer’s origin and destination, descend on the island to buy every gram of the cured product they can get their hands on, easily paying up to $500 for a kilogram of the pods.

This product is not an illegal drug, nor cancer fighting pharmaceuticals, but instead something every one of us has tasted, and most of us have, in some form or another, in our kitchens. The small shriveled black pods are vanilla. Plain old vanilla. But that statement, plain old vanilla, is problematic. When did this exotic flavoring become plain and synonymous with the ordinary and unexciting? Why did its exotic heritage and painstaking production get lost to obscurity? Vanilla is one of the most exotic products from either side of the Columbian exchange, and today it is thought of as plain. And maybe that makes vanilla the ultimate example of the Columbian exchange, but today, as we embrace the origins of our food more, vanilla should take its place at the top of the pantheon of exotic flavors. The origins of vanilla are about as exotic as one can get, and while the shriveled black pod might not feed the world, it certainly flavors it.

So how did vanilla become tantamount to plain and normal? There is really no single moment to point to, compounding reasons accumulated together at the right times to make vanilla plain in today’s vernacular and culinary senses. The first was the nature of vanilla itself. Vanilla is often too fragrant to play the lead in culinary dishes, thus vanilla rarely has the spotlight, instead playing a supporting or sociable role with other flavors. Second was the rise of the confectionary and soft drink industries, which both relied heavily on vanilla for the base flavor of their products. Third was the role vanilla played in prohibition and the rise of the extract market that led to artificial vanilla flavoring. Last, and perhaps the most important, was the ice cream industry embracing vanilla as its base flavor. With ice cream, vanilla was associated not just with common and plain, but also with whiteness.

Vanilla’s transition to plain is surprising, for centuries it was considered exotic and rare with a rich heritage steeped in legend. The vanilla orchid is native to the tropical regions of Mesoamerica. Legend has it that the Totonac people were to first to identify and use vanilla. We may never know for sure, but it is likely that the Olmec, “the mother culture” of Mexico, were actually the first to venture a try at eating the pods. The Totonac, though, developed vanilla as an important commodity and they were the tribe that developed the techniques to cure vanilla and served as the provider to the Aztecs and later to the Europeans.

The Totonac pass down a story about the origin of vanilla through generations, it varies slightly by source, but all tellings agree on the main points. According to this Totonac legend there once was a great Totonac kingdom call Totonacapan. Ruling over this kingdom was Tenitzli III. He and his wife were blessed by the gods to have a daughter of immense beauty. Their daughter, Princess Tzacopontziza, was so beautiful that her parents refused to allow her to marry a mortal. Instead, they dedicated her to Tonacayohua, the goddess of farming and subsistence. Princess Tzacopontziza spent most of her life devoted to gathering food and flowers for the temple. She would venture deep into the forests to collect flowers and it was in the forests that a young prince named Zkatan-Oxga set eyes on her and fell in love. Zkatan-Oxga knew that his life was forfeit if he acted on his love, but his desire and love for the princess outweighed the risks.

One morning, overcome by desire, Zkatan-Oxga took Tzacopontziza from the forest and she too fell under the spell of love. The two sought the mountains, seeking a place to hide from Tzacopontiziza’s father and the Totonac priests. When the two lovers reached the mountains they encountered a fire breathing monster who chased them back to the road, where they were quickly discovered by the Totonac priests. The priests promptly beheaded the two lovers for their affront to the gods. Shortly after, at the site of their murder, where the blood of the princess had soaked the ground, bushes sprang up intertwined with green vines. To the amazement of the Totonac, the vines bloomed with short lived, fragrant flowers followed by green pods that released a fine perfume. This is how the Totonac believe vanilla, the “nectar of the gods,” came into existence.

From Mesoamerica vanilla became part of the Columbian exchange, transitioning to the Old World. Vanilla was a rarity, used by wealthy Europeans to flavor chocolate and tobacco, as an aphrodisiac, and on the rare occasion to flavor food. The price was high because the supply was short. Amerindians kept the process of curing the pods secret, and Europeans could not get the plant to grow pods outside of New Spain. These production problems were overcome by the mid-nineteenth century. Amerindians eventually taught Europeans the curing process, they improved upon the Old World method, and a young slave named Edmond Albius developed a process of hand pollination. Albius’s process of hand pollination, involving delicate work with a small bamboo stick, allowed vanilla to prosper on the French controlled Bourbon Islands. This production provided a still imperfect, but somewhat stable, vanilla crop for Europeans and Americans.

Vanilla thus has exotic origins and is one of the most labor intensive crops on the planet. By all rights it should be considered a rare and special thing, not plain and common. Moctezuma and the Aztecs started one of the problems that led vanilla into its life of commonality. They always used vanilla as a supplement, not on its own. Moctezuma used vanilla to flavor the famed cocoatl drinks, setting the pattern for vanilla. Vanilla served as a supplemental flavor. Not until vanilla ice cream became mainstream did we have a true vanilla flavored foodstuff. Following this pattern, in Europe, vanilla played the back up to chocolate and it stayed this way for decades. The elite experimented with pastries and perfume, but vanilla owed “its very existence to the transculturation of chocolate.” Just like in today’s modern baking, vanilla was the background note, the base flavor of the chocolate drinks. Vanilla thus became tied to chocolate drinks. Fortunately, the demise of chocolate drinks corresponded with the rise of ice cream, which would carry the torch of vanilla.

The decline of chocolate drinks also gave rise to the candy industry. By the mid-nineteenth century, while sugar and vanilla maintained their status as cash crops, they both were more widely available than ever before. With this change, vanilla rose to importance in the world of candies, pastries, and cakes. Vanilla always played the background or secondary flavor in these confections. Candy makers and pastry chefs used vanilla as a ubiquitous ingredient in almost all their creations, thus vanilla became a common background flavor in most sweets. Vanilla also played this ubiquitous role at the soda fountain. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper all originally contained vanilla as a prominent flavor. This combined with the popularity of straight vanilla flavored syrup in the soda fountains, and the vanilla ice cream that quickly became popular, integrated vanilla as a common flavor. Interestingly enough, in contrast to today’s usage as “plain,” soda jerks would announce the arrival of attractive females to the rest of the staff by shouting ‘Vanilla!’ The announcement “implied something delectable and tasty” like vanilla, but “disguised it with a commonplace” thing, also like vanilla.