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Short abstract:

This paper analyzes two critical moments of technological intervention in the history of vanilla’s production to argue that these efforts are predicated on the belief (and investment) in an ever-accessible global pantry, a belief which must be confronted in avoiding solutionist food futures.

Long abstract:

In 2019, the U.S. imported approximately 44% of the global supply of vanilla beans, about 528 metric tons. Despite being the largest global importer, vanilla beans are responsible for only about 15% of American experiences of vanilla. The remaining 85% is comprised of synthetic vanilla flavoring. Ever since the Spanish empire first exported vanilla beans from indigenous Mexican communities to Europe in the 16th century, consumer demand for vanilla has never met the supply. Accordingly, Western science has long sought to circumvent the vanilla orchid to secure consistent, robust access to vanilla. This paper analyzes two critical moments of technological intervention in vanilla’s long history as a commodity: 1) the 19th-century botanical development of the vanilla orchid’s “marriage,” and 2) the 21st-century genetic engineering of e. coli bacteria to synthesize vanilla flavoring from plastic bottle waste. Both moments, 180 years apart, attempt to solve the same problem: the vanilla orchid’s resistance to capitalist logics of efficiency. Both moments imagine a future of vanillic abundance. Both moments also reveal the human infrastructure and forced multi-species labor required to produce vanilla for a hungry global market. Taking the Plantationocene (Haraway et al 2016) as a lens onto vanilla’s past and present, I argue that these efforts to produce vanilla are predicated on the belief (and investment) in an ever-accessible global pantry that may endlessly meet the desires of consumers from the Global North. To imagine vanilla’s future requires grappling not only with the ethics of production but also consumer expectations of accessibility.