Vanilla flavoring comes from *what*?
July 18, 2018 4:35 PM   Subscribe

 
I knew all of those truths, and, anyway, chimpanzees beat elephants in chess clubs. They’re just better at defense, and elephants undervalue pawns.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 PM on July 18, 2018 [4 favorites]


Yeah, but: always let the wookiee elephant win.
posted by Celsius1414 at 5:30 PM on July 18, 2018


11. The sex lives of male Adélie penguins are so deviant that a 1915 research paper found at the Natural History Museum in London had “Not for Publication” scrawled across the top to protect the public from knowing about these perverted penguins.

And yet BF gives no deets. But here I come to save the day:
"The pamphlet, declined for publication with the official Scott expedition reports, commented on the frequency of sexual activity, auto-erotic behaviour, and seemingly aberrant behaviour of young unpaired males and females, including necrophilia, sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks and homosexual behaviour," states the analysis written by Douglas Russell and colleagues William Sladen and David Ainley. "[George Murray Levick's] observations were, however, accurate, valid and, with the benefit of hindsight, deserving of publication." [Wikipedia]
Dr. Levick also wrote the awesomely-titled book Hardening of Commando Troops for Warfare.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:00 PM on July 18, 2018 [9 favorites]


Well, I’m grossed out now.
posted by greermahoney at 6:06 PM on July 18, 2018


What possible reason could ice-cream makers have for using beaver-butt exudations instead of vanilla bean extract?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:22 PM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


[This afternoon I saw a most extraordinary site [sic].
A Penguin was actually engaged in sodomy upon
the body of a dead white throated bird of its own
species. The act occurred a full minute, the position
taken up by the cock differing in no respect from that
of ordinary copulation, and the whole act was gone
through down to the final depression of the cloaca]

Dr. George Murray Levick (1876–1956): unpublished notes on the sexual habits of the Adélie penguin
posted by Omon Ra at 6:28 PM on July 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


AFAIK synthetic vanillin is made from wood-pulp, which is much cheaper and easier to get hold of than beaver testicles.
posted by Fuchsoid at 7:51 PM on July 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


"What possible reason could ice-cream makers have for using beaver-butt exudations instead of vanilla bean extract?"

This isn't why, but vanilla is among the most expensive spices* -- it's extremely labor-intensive, cultivated in very few places, and its price can increase by an order of magnitude due to adverse weather. For decades, vanilla was the most sought-after, expensive spice in the world.

Most vanilla flavoring is from synthetic vanillan.

* Wikipedia says it is second only to saffron, but I suspect this is quite variable.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:59 PM on July 18, 2018


I just looked up castoreum on Wikipedia and, since I used the german language version, it redirected me to the canonical page title: Bibergeil (literally translates as "beaver horny")
posted by Skybly at 12:10 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


The beaver stuff vanilla is a lie. It was done very ‘convincingly’.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:19 AM on July 19, 2018


9. Moose have a taste for overripe, fermented apples that fall from the trees in Sweden in the fall, leading to the countrywide problem of contending with so-called drunken moose.

The big animals can be highly dangerous in this state, with one documented case of a moose committing murder (for which the victim’s husband was initially arrested).


I don't think the moose committed murder, unless we have decided that moose have the capacity to make reasoned, moral choices...
posted by twilightlost at 12:01 PM on July 19, 2018


If you want to go a little more in-depth about the history and content of Levick’s penguin paper, here is a great presentation about it by Fact Fiend’s Karl Smallwood. Somewhat NSFW, as you would expect.
(If you like the style and content of the video, nearly all of his are similarly wildly obscure and piercingly interesting.)
posted by LEGO Damashii at 6:08 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


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