In a recent issue of my favorite cooking magazine, a blind test re-confirmed tasters' preference for artificial vanilla flavor. Cool, right? After all, isn't it nice what fools it makes of all the snobs who make a point of saying "of course, I use only pure vanilla extract" (think Martha Stewart)?
And I can get a big bottle of imitation vanilla at CVS for 99 cents.
But it's even better than that. Pure vanilla extract is very difficult to produce -- laboriously harvested by poorly-paid agricultural laborers. Artificial vanilla is either made from clove extract, or even better, from a by-product of wood pulp, part of the waste from paper manufacturing. I'm talking re-use and re-cycle, yo!
"But," you're asking, "isn't artificial flavoring bad for you?" How's that? Just because something is made in a canister instead of in a plant doesn't make any difference. Vanillin (the main component of vanilla) is vanillin (the chemical in artificial vanilla flavor). Sure, in many cases, plants are the most effective way to produce the range and variety of chemicals nutrients we need. But we're talking flavor here, not nutrition. And imitation vanilla is good shit.
So the objections to artificial flavoring boil down to either a mysticism of the origins of food -- the profanity of "gourmet" food company commercial interests dressed up in sanctimonious hokum -- or self-punishing, purse-lipped Calvanism -- the bitter pill of sanctimony swallowed without benefit of a coating of hokum. Neither of which, needless to say, are invited to my table.
Posted by Sam at June 14, 2004 02:27 AMyumm... wood extract. some people like coal dust extract too...
Posted by: tiny on July 11, 2004 11:25 AMwhat's up with all the porn and penis-pill ads?
neither of which seem to have much to do with hotdogs or artificial vanilla extract. i suppose it must be automated... unless there's something about your audience that i don't know? oh crap, I...