Vanilla

Vanilla pods, also called beans, are the fruit of a flowering climbing vine originally found in Central America but now mostly cultivated on islands off the East Coast of Africa. Unripe they have no flavour, but after lengthy exposure to sunshine, followed by slow drying over a period of months, they develop their characteristic taste and aroma. Most of the 1,500 tonnes produced each year goes into commercially manufactured ice-cream, the rest being used by cooks to impart its unique and subtle flavour by exposing them to heated liquid.