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| Plain Vanilla or Exotic Chocolate? |
Flamboyant flavors are vigorously vended…
Dean: You have
vanilla?
Mr Bishop: Ice
cream? Sure, we’ve got plain vanilla. But can I interest you in something more
exotic?
Dean: Chili
chocolate?
Mr Bishop: Tame.
Try a Bacon Dark, or a Cherry Rooibos Choco, a Smoke and Stout Dairy or a Black
Salt Cacao.
Dean: Thanks. I’ll take
plain vanilla.
(The Shakespeare Road Dairy, 2015)
________________
Voice-over
Poor vanilla. Disparagingly
named “plain” vanilla when set alongside “exotic” chocolate flavors.
This is really ironical.
Vanilla comes from orchids. Vanilla is “orchidaceously” exotic. There are more
than 20,000 species. But there are only three
main cultivars of cacao trees. Out of such diversity, drastic reduction
develops. From such a restricted resource, diversity is marketed. Marketers can
make silk purses from sow’s ears.
