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Chapter 16. Vanilla Use in Colonial Mexico and Traditional Totonac Vanilla Farming
Patricia Rain and Pesach Lubinsky
Mesoamerica
The tribes living in the northern regions of vanilla’s natural range were the first to incorporate vanilla into their lives, perhaps as early as 2000–2500 years before the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1520. From Central Mexico to Costa Rica, there was a passion for pungent, aromatic fragrances. Vanilla had sacred and religious connotations as did corn and cacao. These were gifts bestowed upon them by the gods and were treated with reverence. Corn provided nourishment, cacao was a ceremonial drink, and vanilla was a fragrant incense. Vanilla beans were ground and mixed with copal (a dried resin from the Copalli tree with a pleasing pine-like odor) to perfume their temples. The native peoples were highly knowledgeable about the medicinal use of herbs, and may well have used ground vanilla bean for lung and stomach disorders as well as used the liquid from green beans as a poultice for drawing out insect venom and infections from wounds. Their medicinal skills far surpassed those of the Europeans at the time of their arrival in Mexico in the sixteenth century. While vanilla taken to Spain in the early 1500s was valued as a commodity, for the tribal peoples of the Americas vanilla was reverently considered as a sacramental herb.
During the pre-Classic period, approximately 1500 bc, extensive trade routes developed throughout Mesoamerica, and the bartering of goods between groups living in the various different climates and altitudes, brought about cultural exchanges including the sharing of important discoveries and spiritual beliefs. This is likely the time when vanilla was first used and traded among coastal tribes.
As the hunting and gathering nomadic lifestyle was slowly replaced by a more agrarian and settled existence, the population expanded, and adequate food production became increasingly important. Greater focus was placed on the nature gods, such as Tlaloc and Xipe Toltec, as it was believed that they controlled the rain, the sun, the winds, and the harvests. Pleasing the gods meant abundant food supplies.
It was during this time period that the Olmecs, the “mother culture” of Mexico, emerged. They lived in the humid forests and open savannahs along the Gulf Coast of southern Vera Cruz and Tabasco. In addition to being skilled artists and having highly developed commerce, the Olmecs made huge contributions to the development of what came to be the backbone of Mesoamerican diet—maize.
The Olmecs developed a technique that inadvertently changed the nutritional value of maize, which had not been particularly important until then, and subsequently, literally fueled the growth and development of all of Mexico. Instead of boiling dried maize kernels until they were soft, or pounding them into powder, corn was cooked with white lime or wood ashes and then left overnight in the cooking liquid. The transparent hulls (pericarp) of the treated kernels now slipped off easily, making it much easier to grind the corn into a smooth dough (known as nixtamalli in Nahuatl, masa in Spanish). This simple shift in preparation changed corn from a low-protein grain into a high-protein food, creating Mexico’s staff of life.