What is the difference between vanilla and French vanilla?
According to one chef. . . “What is “french vanilla”? What is different about it from regular vanilla?” Chef Ottevanger answered: “The difference is lots more egg yolks.” This makes sense when one considers that French Vanilla is actually “not a type of vanilla. It is a term used to describe an egg-custard base for ice cream.” as stated in the answer given by ztorgo. Another explanation is given as. . . Flavor: Vanilla flavor in creams, cakes and other foodstuff may be achieved by adding some vanilla essence or by cooking vanilla beans in the liquid preparation. A stronger aroma may be attained if the beans are split in two; in this case, the innards of the beans, consisting of flavory tiny black grains, are mixed into the preparation. Good quality vanilla has a strong aromatic flavor, but foodstuffs with small amounts of low quality vanilla or artificial vanilla-like flavorings are far more common. By analogy, the term is used, often as “plain vanilla”, in computing for default set up
While today’s ice cream enthusiasts may view vanilla as a bland or generic offering, it used to be considered a very exotic flavor indeed. Because it became such a popular choice for consumers, vanilla became the standard bearer of the ice cream family, closely followed by chocolate and strawberry. The complex flavors created by the vanilla bean, a member of the orchid family, were never intended to become a generic base, however.
