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 ...  more