The History of Vanilla

On the other hand, the International Ice Cream Association, which should know, puts vanilla at the top of the charts as first choice of 29 percent of ice-cream eaters, feebly followed by chocolate (8.9 percent), butter pecan (5.3 percent), and strawberry (5.3 percent). According to food historian Waverley Root, the first known vanilla recipe appears in the 1805 edition of Hannah Glasse’s The Art of CookeryHannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery, which suggests adding “vanelas” to chocolate; the first American recipe-for vanilla ice cream-is found in Mary Randolph’s The Virginia HousewifeMary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife (1824). Synbio vanillin, claims a recent article in Mother Jones, “will compete directly with the premium-priced natural vanilla market now owned by farmers in places like Madagascar and Mexico.”

Source: www.nationalgeographic.com