Caution re Mexican vanilla

Dear fellow home-chefs,

Please be cautious of vanilla purchased in Mexico. I read an article in either the San Francisco Chronicle or the Contra Costa times cautioning buyers regarding this product. There are companies in Mexico that add coumarin to the vanilla (it smells and tastes like vanilla only stronger) and can cause organ damage. The article was published a very long time ago so I don't remember the organs named, but it was probably liver or kidney. The article went on to state that labeling requirements are different in Mexico so that you might not even know if you are getting vanilla spiked with coumarin or not -- even if the bottle says "Pure Vanilla."

I agree: shopping in foreign countries is intriguing. My husband and I chartered a bare boat in La Paz, Mexico and provisioned it at the "CCC" grocery store there. It's like one of the biggest grocery stores that we have here in California. They had everything, even dry goods. It was a challenge at times to try to figure out some of the herbs and spices, but we did ok. The hardest thing was trying to describe to a clerk that we wanted charcoal. We didn't know the name in Spanish -- turns out it's "carbon." But after about 5 minutes of pantomime he understood what we wanted, led us to it and we learned a new Spanish word!

Adios,

Marilyn