Mesoamerican people, including the Aztecs, cultivated vanilla beans. When the Spanish arrived, it became an important commodity in the first waves of global trade. In acts of jealousy, English and French pirates made efforts to break up Spain's cartel. That led to more vanilla domestication in the Caribbean. Belgian botanists pioneered new methods to improve yields. Large slave-fueled plantations grew massive amounts of vanilla on Madagascar and other Indian Ocean islands. After the outlawing of slavery, the largest hub for vanilla switched to South Pacific islands. Due to marketing campaigns and the mass production of synthetic varieties, vanilla became ubiquitous. Today, it is ironic that one flavor can be both bourgeois and bland, decadent and dull, posh and pedestrian, cultured and colorless, opulent and ordinary, stylish and stagnant, luxurious and lackluster.