By Rabbi Gavriel Price
In order to get to Indospice, a vanilla bean export company deep in the jungles of Bondowasa Java, Indonesia, Rabbi Moshe Machuca arrives at a local airport, drives up, down, and around steep mountains, past fishing villages, thatched huts, caribou, monkeys, and exotic birds for five difficult, but colorful, hours until he reaches the plant. There he watches as workers at Indospice scald vanilla beans in vats of boiling water and set them in the sun for three to four weeks. The process, called curing, initiates a series of biochemical events within the vanilla bean that yields one of the most cherished, and expensive, flavors in the world: natural vanilla.
Today’s consumers are increasingly demanding food that, in addition to tasting good, is also healthy and affordable. This poses a tremendous challenge to the food industry – a challenge that becomes still more sophisticated when kosher requirements are introduced into the equation.
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