Can vanilla pods be blended into a paste? As recipes using vanilla seeds often request the pod to be chucked in the pot, I'm thinking there must be no unappealing flavors in the pod itself.

I've seen vanilla pastes for sale but they seem to be a mix of the extract and the seeds.

So what about blending up used pods with a bit of liquid (vodka?)? Tasteless?
I believe you could do it, but as the pods itself are really fibered you don't want to eat them I think.

What you could do is cooking the pods. For example when I make a vanilla ganache, I always bring heavy cream, vanilla seeds and the pods to a boil. Then I let it sit for approx. 30 min an take out the pods. This method can be easily adopted to make vanilla syrup.

To make vanilla sugar just put some scraped out pods into a sugar jar and let it sit for a few weeks.

So you see - you can use the pods for many things, but eating the directly doesn't seem to be popular.