When I was growing up, there weren’t very many days that went by that my dad wouldn’t head to the freezer in the evening to fill up a bowl with ice cream. Maybe you enjoy good old standbys like Cookies & Cream or Mint Chocolate Chip. Maybe you like to pile on the toppings. Or, maybe you like just plain old vanilla. I recently found out that there is nothing plain or boring about vanilla; I just didn’t know the whole story!
For starters, vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world (#1 is saffron).
Vanilla is the only edible fruit out of 35,000 species of orchid. Whoa! That’s a statistical miracle.
It requires a special tropical climate to grow vanilla, and each flower blooms for, wait for it…one day.
Pound for pound, vanilla seeds are worth more than silver!
Historically, only kings could afford such a rare delicacy as vanilla.
Not to mention the invention of ice cream itself, which would have required sending an expedition to the mountains to bring back ice during a hot summer.
And yet here we are, casually enjoying this frozen dessert flavored with one of the most miraculous spices in the world. 🍦
I may have called it “plain vanilla.” before, but now I realize it’s nothing short of a miracle!