The Secrets of the World’s Favorite Smell

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. Youve heard the news. Heres what to make of it. Im Aimee Nezhukumatathil Im a parent of two teen boys. Im a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi, and Im the author of two essay collections and four books of poetry. [SOFT MUSIC] I dont think you can be a parent at this point, or just even someone who looks at the news and not be worried about all these kinds of scary things that are going on in our environment. But I find that when I am overwhelmed with the news, I find that I do the most action when I hear about something that I love, or when I get inspired by hearing about what somebody else loves. I find also that sharing what you love is contagious. You realize, oh, without them, that would be a sad world. And so I just thought, what would it what would happen if we lost the worlds favorite smell? I just worry for the future of vanilla. As a girl who moved around a lot when I was younger, my parents are immigrants and my mother, we had to move several times because of her job, so I dont really have a sense of home the way my husband has a sense of home. He lived in one state all his life. Vanilla, for me, is a grounding. Its a way to tether myself to a moment, a kitchen, to loved ones, without ever leaving my house. To me, home is not a place, but its a feeling, and vanilla is one of those that I could be tethered to the people I love, and to the feeling that I want to share with everybody as well. So Im not at all saying were going to cure the world by focusing on vanilla, but Im just saying we could start small by noticing what we love. And so heres my essay on the importance of the vanilla bean. From custard to candles, we live in a world suffused with vanilla, and the plant that produces it is in danger. Extracted from the bean pod of a delicate orchid, vanilla must be grown under exceptionally precise conditions along a very narrow band of the Earth, between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. This supreme finickiness makes it unusually vulnerable to the growing shocks of climate change and deforestation. Most commercial production of vanilla is in Madagascar, Mexico, and Tahiti. As the world warms, cyclones and storms in these regions are growing stronger, toppling the orchid blossoms and vanilla beans before they get a chance to fully mature. In 2017, a Category 4 equivalent cyclone decimated an estimated 30 percent of the vanilla vines in Madagascar. Those vines produced 80 percent of the vanilla used around the globe. Afterward, the price of vanilla bean pods surged to nearly $300 a pound. Most people I know who brood in despair over climate change know that extreme weather could threaten crops like corn and coffee. But you probably havent fathomed what it would be like to lose the scent and the taste of real vanilla. To understand how much we could lose if real vanilla disappears, you have to understand the history, some of it dark, of how it became a global commodity. We wouldnt have vanilla ice cream, perfumes, or desserts without a 12-year-old named Edmond Albius. His mother died in the early 19th century on the island of Reunion, then called Bourbon, off the coast of Madagascar. The man who enslaved him was a botanist who fussed and fumed over his vanilla orchids, which simply would not bloom. Now, historians dont know if the young Mr. Albius was ordered to find a solution, or if he came up with it on his own. But in 1841, he developed the technique, flattening the anther sac and the stigma of the orchid blossom with his finger and thumb, and that is still used today, all over the world, to pollinate vanilla orchids manually and produce large quantities of the extract. The orchids bloom is brief. Morning sees them unfurl in wide display. But by noon, the flower closes, making the window for hand pollination very narrow. Then, for each pollinated blossom, it takes nearly a year to fully grow and dry the beans. When the pods shrivel and become supple, they turn a dark brown color, and then give off the rich aroma. Farmers today grow about four and a half million pounds of dried vanilla beans annually, but it takes about 300 hand pollinated orchid blossoms to produce just one pound. So if wind and unusually heavy rains knock these blooms off early, farmers must start the whole lengthy, years long process from scratch. They dont cultivate them indoors because of the extremely high costs of providing enough space, heat, indirect sunlight, and, humidity for the vines, which grow draped on trees and shrubs and extend to upward of 100 feet, flourishing under the soft, dappled light that pokes through a tree canopy. Because the production of real vanilla is so labor intensive, scientists have experimented with creating substitutes, but many of these substitutes are terrible for the environment, creating large amounts of wastewater. When I cook or make gifts for friends using vanilla beans, my fingertips stay oiled with the scent of vanilla beans and the tiniest whiff of orchids for days. The scent creates a kind of nostalgia of having sweets cooked up for me at various family gatherings that my grandparents in India and the Philippines have passed on to my parents here in the United States, and that I hope get carried on to my sons living in north Mississippi. It would be a pity to lose these soothing, warm sensations to something chemically made and one-dimensional, while the real deal gets relegated to the memory bins of an older generation. Mostly, I hope that well learn to recognize the value and the time it takes to grow a single vanilla pod, especially in the tropical belt full of birdsong and bright colored insects. Under that colorful canopy of wild and audacious feather and carapace, the pale vanilla orchid glows as if it were a sentinel, a lighthouse offering us a gentle warning before its too late. [SOFT MUSIC] [PEACEFUL MUSIC] If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vishakha Darbha, Phoebe Lett, Kristina Samulewski, and Jillian Weinberger. Its edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie-Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carole Sabouraud, and Efim Shapiro. Additional music by Aman Sahota. The fact-check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta, Kristina Samulewski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. [SOFT MUSIC] transcript This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. Youve heard the news. Heres what to make of it. Im Aimee Nezhukumatathil Im a parent of two teen boys. Im a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi, and Im the author of two essay collections and four books of poetry. [SOFT MUSIC] I dont think you can be a parent at this point, or just even someone who looks at the news and not be worried about all these kinds of scary things that are going on in our environment. But I find that when I am overwhelmed with the news, I find that I do the most action when I hear about something that I love, or when I get inspired by hearing about what somebody else loves. I find also that sharing what you love is contagious. You realize, oh, without them, that would be a sad world. And so I just thought, what would it what would happen if we lost the worlds favorite smell? I just worry for the future of vanilla. As a girl who moved around a lot when I was younger, my parents are immigrants and my mother, we had to move several times because of her job, so I dont really have a sense of home the way my husband has a sense of home. He lived in one state all his life. Vanilla, for me, is a grounding. Its a way to tether myself to a moment, a kitchen, to loved ones, without ever leaving my house. To me, home is not a place, but its a feeling, and vanilla is one of those that I could be tethered to the people I love, and to the feeling that I want to share with everybody as well. So Im not at all saying were going to cure the world by focusing on vanilla, but Im just saying we could start small by noticing what we love. And so heres my essay on the importance of the vanilla bean. From custard to candles, we live in a world suffused with vanilla, and the plant that produces it is in danger. Extracted from the bean pod of a delicate orchid, vanilla must be grown under exceptionally precise conditions along a very narrow band of the Earth, between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. This supreme finickiness makes it unusually vulnerable to the growing shocks of climate change and deforestation. Most commercial production of vanilla is in Madagascar, Mexico, and Tahiti. As the world warms, cyclones and storms in these regions are growing stronger, toppling the orchid blossoms and vanilla beans before they get a chance to fully mature. In 2017, a Category 4 equivalent cyclone decimated an estimated 30 percent of the vanilla vines in Madagascar. Those vines produced 80 percent of the vanilla used around the globe. Afterward, the price of vanilla bean pods surged to nearly $300 a pound. Most people I know who brood in despair over climate change know that extreme weather could threaten crops like corn and coffee. But you probably havent fathomed what it would be like to lose the scent and the taste of real vanilla. To understand how much we could lose if real vanilla disappears, you have to understand the history, some of it dark, of how it became a global commodity. We wouldnt have vanilla ice cream, perfumes, or desserts without a 12-year-old named Edmond Albius. His mother died in the early 19th century on the island of Reunion, then called Bourbon, off the coast of Madagascar. The man who enslaved him was a botanist who fussed and fumed over his vanilla orchids, which simply would not bloom. Now, historians dont know if the young Mr. Albius was ordered to find a solution, or if he came up with it on his own. But in 1841, he developed the technique, flattening the anther sac and the stigma of the orchid blossom with his finger and thumb, and that is still used today, all over the world, to pollinate vanilla orchids manually and produce large quantities of the extract. The orchids bloom is brief. Morning sees them unfurl in wide display. But by noon, the flower closes, making the window for hand pollination very narrow. Then, for each pollinated blossom, it takes nearly a year to fully grow and dry the beans. When the pods shrivel and become supple, they turn a dark brown color, and then give off the rich aroma. Farmers today grow about four and a half million pounds of dried vanilla beans annually, but it takes about 300 hand pollinated orchid blossoms to produce just one pound. So if wind and unusually heavy rains knock these blooms off early, farmers must start the whole lengthy, years long process from scratch. They dont cultivate them indoors because of the extremely high costs of providing enough space, heat, indirect sunlight, and, humidity for the vines, which grow draped on trees and shrubs and extend to upward of 100 feet, flourishing under the soft, dappled light that pokes through a tree canopy. Because the production of real vanilla is so labor intensive, scientists have experimented with creating substitutes, but many of these substitutes are terrible for the environment, creating large amounts of wastewater. When I cook or make gifts for friends using vanilla beans, my fingertips stay oiled with the scent of vanilla beans and the tiniest whiff of orchids for days. The scent creates a kind of nostalgia of having sweets cooked up for me at various family gatherings that my grandparents in India and the Philippines have passed on to my parents here in the United States, and that I hope get carried on to my sons living in north Mississippi. It would be a pity to lose these soothing, warm sensations to something chemically made and one-dimensional, while the real deal gets relegated to the memory bins of an older generation. Mostly, I hope that well learn to recognize the value and the time it takes to grow a single vanilla pod, especially in the tropical belt full of birdsong and bright colored insects. Under that colorful canopy of wild and audacious feather and carapace, the pale vanilla orchid glows as if it were a sentinel, a lighthouse offering us a gentle warning before its too late. [SOFT MUSIC] [PEACEFUL MUSIC] If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vishakha Darbha, Phoebe Lett, Kristina Samulewski, and Jillian Weinberger. Its edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie-Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carole Sabouraud, and Efim Shapiro. Additional music by Aman Sahota. The fact-check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta, Kristina Samulewski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. [SOFT MUSIC] The scent of vanilla is instantly recognizable its also in danger of disappearing. In this ode to the vanilla bean, writer Aimee Nezhukumatathil explains why climate change might lead to the destruction of the beloved plant. Email us at . This episode of The Opinions was produced by Vishakha Darbha. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Sophia Lanman. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.