Vanilla what's best

[Norwaylin]

I have always bought Imitation Vanilla Flavoring in a plastic bottle from my local grocery stores. I went to Cancun with a friend and we took a bus to the local grocery store. He bought two or three glass bottles for his mother because she baked a lot. I didn't realize there was a difference in vanilla since I was not "Suzie Homemaker" -- single and only baked occasionally. Now I don't bake without the good stuff. I have been to Mexico about five times over the past 12 years and always brought back vanilla. Since I haven't any left, I look to the kindness of my friends and family who do travel and ask them to bring vanilla -- no gifts -- just vanilla. One of my dear friend who recently died used to go to a store in Amish Country to buy her vanilla. I plan to make that trip before the snow starts here in Northeast Ohio. The store she went to is near Warren or Youngstown, Ohio.

[russianmom]

I would be very skeptical about buying vanilla in Mexico... As a baker I learned a secret at The Culinary Institute of America ( 2-3 whole vanilla beans soaked in some vodka for a month or two in a dark place)

 

"Vanilla fragrans, as genuine vanilla is known, is native to Mexico, and well into the 19th century makers of high-quality Mexican vanilla had a lock on the business. But competitors elsewhere in the world began stealing market share, and in the 1880s the first synthetic vanilla was developed in Germany. During the Mexican Revolution of 1910-'20 fighting devastated the gulf coast, the center of Mexican vanilla cultivation, and production dropped sharply. Faced with a flood of cheap ersatz product and little of the genuine article to sell, Mexican producers began making synthetic vanilla themselves. But Mexico was still known as the home of the world's best vanilla, so the producers didn't admit what they were doing. They disguised the artificial taste by adding coumarin, an extract of the tonka bean, Dipteryx odorata. Coumarin tastes and smells just like vanilla, only more so. One whiff and your rube tourist from Utah is likely to say, "Whoa, that's good!" No, that's bad. Coumarin has been shown to cause liver damage in lab animals. The Food and Drug Administration restricted it starting in 1940 and banned it outright from all foods and food additives sold in the U.S. in 1954. Many other countries have done likewise.

Coumarin has its uses. A derivative called dicumarol is used as an anticoagulant (blood thinner). Under the trade name warfarin it's used to poison rats by causing internal bleeding. The 1983 article in FDA Consumer I'm getting this from says "there has been no indication that coumarin itself produces this blood-thinning effect in humans." I'm not so sure. Another FDA Consumer article about the dangers of herbal tea told of a young woman who drank large amounts of a home-brew tea containing coumarin and suffered abnormal menstrual bleeding. So yes, I'd say toxic. On the plus side, it's very reasonably priced. You can get a quart for only a few bucks.

Most of the vanilla sold in Mexico is synthetic, though it doesn't all have coumarin in it. Telltale signs of the fake stuff: clear, or dark and murky (the real stuff is amber colored and translucent), low alcohol content (genuine vanilla extract contains at least 35% ethyl alcohol), laughably low price. Pure Mexican vanilla is available, but you're better off getting it in this country. Warning: it won't be cheap.":eek:

[Sarah@Sea]

Where is Los Cincos?

[travelbig]

Where is Los Cincos?

 

There is a Los Cinco Soles at the pier with all the other stores and a much larger store at the far end of downtown. That is the location where the taxis usually drop you off at, or you can just tell the driver that is where you want to be let off.