The Decline and Fall of the Banana
It's a common joke that conservatives are always longing for the good old days. Things were better back then, if only because we remember them through a golden haze of nostalgia. Well, sometimes we're right: things were better back in the day. For example, the banana. If you're old enough, the bananas of your youth were Big Mikes (the Gros Michel cultivar). Now they're universally the blander, starchier Cavendish.
I was born too late to ever taste a good, old fashioned banana. Instead, I grew up wondering why, oh why, my parents and grandparents expected me to believe that bananas were a delicious fruit, and why the banana split ever became a popular dessert. How exactly is an ice-cream sundae improved by surrounding it with two strips of bland, starchy, unripe-tasting Styrofoam?
What happened to the old banana? In one sense, lack of sex is what brought it down. Cultivated bananas are usually sterile hybrids, meaning they're propagated by cloning. It's not hard for one disease to wipe out an entire population of clones, and that's indeed what happened. By the mid 1960s, Panama Disease had wiped out Big Mike worldwide, and may do the same thing to the Cavendish in the future. I, for one, will not miss the Cavendish when it goes.
But there's still hope for banana lovers. My husband was born just in time to have tasted the last of the Big Mikes in his early childhood. With no knowledge that the varieties had changed, he spent the rest of his life wondering why bananas never tasted as good as his first memories of them. Until yesterday. We got a bunch of small bananas, each only a little longer than a finger. I persuaded him to eat one. His whole face lit up: "Wow. This tastes... like a banana!"
Maybe I should end with the lesson that bigger isn't always better, but I think it's more entertaining to end with a bit of musical trivia. Rumor has it that for decades, "Yes! We have no bananas", a song inspired by an early outbreak of Panama Disease, was the best selling sheet music in history. How many hit songs can claim the distinction of having been inspired by an agricultural pest?
Photo: Quantum Soup
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Comments:
Apr '12
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Mid-60's you say? That explains it. When I was boy at that time my Dad ran a fruit stand. On one visit I happily chowed down 10 bananas in a sitting. Not long after that I found I'd lost my taste for bananas, but in reality the bananas had lost their taste.
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
If you can, get yourself some of those small bananas (from, say, a store catering to immigrants). I don't know the name of the variety, but according to Mr Rattlesnake they're the real deal, only in a smaller package. Yum!
Dec '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
If they tasted any better I'd go broke buying them for the kids. They eat a lot of fruit already.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Apple Bananas in Mexico are exceptional. Small and sweet. I have not seen them up here, however.
Apr '12
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
If you can, get yourself some of those small bananas (from, say, a store catering to immigrants). I don't know the name of the variety, but according to Mr Rattlesnake they're the real deal, only in a smaller package. Yum! · 19 minutes ago
Thanks, I'll check it out.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Relatedly: although I enjoy the larger and sweeter apples of today, I miss the Baldwins of my youth. Granny Smiths just don't make the same kind of pie. Blander, mealier ... ugh.
Mar '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
In India it is still possible to get the small, non-Cavendish bananas, and they are heavenly.
One main reason (aside from disease) that Cavendish became so popular is because they take much longer to ripen, and thus don't spoil on the boat ride from the tropics to the temperates. So in some ways, globalization killed the banana star - but not enough to prevent bananas from remaining the most-eaten fruit on Earth.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
I like the photo of the tiny sad-faced banana. :-)
May '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
I have been following the expected demise of the ubiquitous Cavendish banana for a while. Mendel is right, as usual, about the reason for popularity of the slowly ripening banana that we take for granted. I look forward to smaller, more flavorful bananas in the market, perhaps locally grown in my near tropical environ, but I hope they are more palatable than plantains. Why anyone would want to fry and eat a bitter, mushy, small green banana is a mystery to me.
May '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Oh, Midge, that photograph was a work of art. Pat yourself on the back for that. Tabula rasa would consider it a still life.
Edited on June 24, 2012 at 11:33pmAug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Alas, I cannot claim credit. "Quantum Soup" is the one who snapped the photo.
Edited on June 24, 2012 at 11:46pmAug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
A penguin after my own heart, then.
Mendel:
One main reason (aside from disease) that Cavendish became so popular is because they take much longer to ripen, and thus don't spoil on the boat ride from the tropics to the temperates.
Yep. Cavendishes are even more shippable than Big Mikes. But Big Mikes must've been shippable enough (else how could they have been so popular before air travel was common?) and I have no doubt that they were tastier than Cavendishes.
I find myself in the awkward position of mourning a banana I never knew.
Edited on June 25, 2012 at 1:17amOct '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
I rediscovered the banana some years back at my local organic food store. Being able to taste the banana flavor of the organics gave me at least one good reason to pay more. (No, I'm not sure which breed it was.)
Jan '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
I love Ricochet!
The engineering company where I got my first job did R&D - mostly for the military, but sometimes for commercial interests. In the late 60's or early 70's, a company asked us for a control system design which could be used to control the release of ethylene into the hold of a cargo ship at a fixed time before the ship reached port. The goal was with the properly timed release of the ethylene into a hold with bananas, the shipper could load totally green bananas which would then look ripe on arrival.
We didn't get the project, but ever since, I have been suspicious of yellow bananas.
Edited on June 25, 2012 at 1:56amJun '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
I had no idea that there was so much drama behind the banana.
Jun '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Southern Pessimist: Oh, Midge, that photograph was a work of art. Pat yourself on the back for that. Tabula rasa would consider it a still life. · 3 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
You mean it's not?
Apr '12
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
We used to grow our own bananas. The small ones were called Ladies Fingers. Now that I type that, it is a bit gruesome!
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Can't resist.
I love the line about "flecked with brown and have a golden hue".
Dec '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Hm. I wonder if an outbreak of Greek Disease might bring down leftism...
Probably not.
Jun '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Bananas sill taste great to me...not to be contrary.