Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean

Vanilla is one of the most widely used flavorings in the world—and among the most misunderstood. In this serious yet accessible history, historian Eric T. Jennings traces how a tropical orchid native to Central America became both a global commodity and, paradoxically, a synonym for the ordinary.

While the book gestures toward vanilla’s early significance, its real strength lies in charting the transformation that began in the 19th century. Jennings gives detailed attention to the contributions of Charles-François Antoine Morren, a Belgian botanist who achieved artificial pollination in a European greenhouse, and Edmond Albius, the enslaved teenager on Réunion whose practical hand-pollination method—still in use today—enabled the large-scale cultivation of vanilla outside its native range.

Jennings follows the bean’s journey through the colonial economies of the Indian Ocean, the rise of synthetic vanillin, and the cultural shift that turned vanilla into a byword for the unremarkable—particularly in the United States. Along the way, he connects developments in agriculture, flavor science, global trade, and marketing, without losing sight of the human stories behind the plant’s global spread.

Extensively documented with endnotes but always readable, Vanilla offers a clear-eyed, compelling account of how this once-rare flavor became both ubiquitous and undervalued.

Eric T. Jennings is chair of the History Department and a fellow at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. 

Hardcover. Black-and-white photographs and illustrations.