On Vanilla
A Short Word, A Sweet Recipe, And Links To Further Reading
Happy and Blessed Friday!
Welcome to the Chapel of Honey! We meet you as you are, where you are, no judgement.
I want to share a recipe on this beautiful Venus day, one I’m enjoying as I type: hot cocoa. The cocoa itself is less the star of the day so much as the vanilla included, the catalyst that moves me every time I slide a blade through the mahogany pod and sprinkle a seemingly endless number of black seeds into whatever I’m cooking up. It’s something I’ve done a hundred times if once, much like de-thorning a rose or plucking feather remnants from a chicken. All of these rituals in their way.
Vanilla is, even among my personal close list, a special plant. It always brings my mind to Edmond Albius, Ancestors felt but unnamed, and the ways violent colonization has played a part in so much of our history. Sometimes working with vanilla feels like a quiet reclamation, other times I laugh aloud at the absurdity of connotations of plainness, of whiteness. Vanilla is rich, potent, dark and glorious, delicate, captivating, and at this point a kitchen staple.
As with anything I make I find my heart and mind going to the Ancestors, Dead, the living laborers, and any other spirits associated with the ingredients being used. One of my passions is the study and elevation of what I consider a body of over-industrialized and taken for granted plants: sugar, vanilla, cacao, coffee, tobacco. While those five are the ones closest to my heart the list also includes tea, rice, corn, indigo, cannabis. Plants that are used everyday by most people but have a history and present connection to imperialism, enslavement and/or criminally low wages, lack of ownership by those laboring, disruption and removal from the environments they originate in and the ecologies they are a part of. These plants are used in such a way that the sacred knowledge is all but forgotten while relationship becomes use, losing context and care in ways that lead to reliance and illness. There is more to be said and explored, from diet culture to escapism to self medication (which is itself an entire field requiring nuance and care, because self-medication is natural but the environments people find themselves in, wounds being addressed, supportive care, education, and safe supplies are a whole nother story). I digress.
Vanilla is one of my favorite ingredients, one of my favorite plants, and something worth learning about. Vanilla is a part of our history! Check out the links below for further reading on vanilla and related topics, and then test out the recipe!
Coffee, Glamour, and Ancestral Weavings: On Edmund Albius, vanilla, indigo, and Ancestral plants
Houseplants and Hoodoo: On discernment, divinity, dieffenbachia, and the importance of cultivating plant relationships where you are
The Feast of Tante Edmond Albius, The Orchid King: On Edmond Albius, Vanilla and the cost of our common use plants, violence, Ancestral messages, and mediumship
Coffee With The Dead: On daily ritual, Ancestral veneration, coffee, and connection
Nail Art: Glamour As Cultural Preservation: On nail art and its history, racism, Ancestral connection, and the power of glamour for personal growth and cultural preservation
