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:
Dec '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Thinking the same thing... love the photo!
Feb '12
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Humbly, may I suggest a change to the title to "The Slip and Fall of the Banana"?
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Every try Pink Lady apples? They make an excellent pie.
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
For me, a Cavendish actually starts tasting like a banana when the skin gets brown all over. But by then, the texture is usually all mushy and slimy. Lots of folks think a banana in that state is rotten rather than merely "overripe".
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Do you have a Chinese grocery store where you are? the ones in our town (Houston) stock several different types of banana and they all taste different. And better than the standard ones - Cavendish? Smaller varieties seem more flavorful to me. In my home state in India (Kerala) I've seen at least 15 varieties. My grandfather would force us - when we were kids - to taste the subtle differences between them.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
One of the agricultural exports my hometown in the Philippines was known for were bananas, specifically Cavendish for the Japanese market. On seasons when other fruit supplies were abundant, the Japanese buyers were known to be more discriminating with their quality control, rejecting produce that were a millimeter shorter or longer than the acceptable size. Workers in banana plantations took to raising pigs in their backyards, feeding the animals with bananas nobody wanted. You see, people in our region would eat señorita, lacatan, or latundan varieties of bananas, but not cavendish. I've been in the US for 10 years now and I still wince at having to pay so much for the kind of bananas I used to associate with pig's food.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Paul, excellent point. Nor am I bananas over the current headline, which is ripe for change, and your suggestion is definitely a-peel-ing. Still, I'd understand if the author doesn't care to monkey around with it.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
It's one thing to lose some tree frog or beetle that no one's ever heard of, but its so depressing to think that delicious food could go extinct.
So is there any way to replicate or reengineer an extinct banana? Can it's "DNA" be preserved or extracted from a tree stump or something?
Also, were old banana peels more slippery than todays, or was it just more common to see them strewn about in the crowded early 20th century cities where borsht belt comics grew up?
Mar '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
This is the best post on Ricochet since the primaries began. Fascinating!
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
WillowSpring: 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. · 4 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
You really shouldn't be ethylene doesn't make fruit look ripened...it actually triggers the natural ripening process.
Also with respect to the common banana. Perhaps these old varieties are really better, but in my experience people don't let the common banana ripen enough before eating it. It has to start getting black spots on the peal. Then it is at peak ripeness and they taste great.
Apr '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Cutlass: It's one thing to lose some tree frog or beetle that no one's ever heard of, but its so depressing to think that delicious food could go extinct.
So is there any way to replicate or reengineer an extinct banana? Can it's "DNA" be preserved or extracted from a tree stump or something?
Also, were old banana peels more slippery than todays, or was it just more common to see them strewn about in the crowded early 20th century cities where borsht belt comics grew up? · 54 minutes ago
Sadly I don't think you can bring back a variety of crop back unless you have some stored seed. You can always try to breed back into lines traits you find appealing. Even if you could extract the DNA there isn't really anything you could do with it. I mean in animals you could try Somatic Nuclear Transfer (that is how Dolly the sheep was made) but that doesn't work in plants. Even if it works there are still many problems with the final adult.
Jul '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
On our honeymoon in Jamaica (many) years ago, we were always served tree-ripened bananas for breakfast. Oh my. Don't know what the variety was, but they were sooo good.
BTW, anyone up for another round of comments about the Euro regs concerning the curvature of bananas - and the fines imposed for selling non-compliant ones??? (If anyone remembers, that must have been a few years ago.)
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
barbara lydick:
BTW, anyone up for another round of comments about the Euro regs concerning the curvature of bananas - and the fines imposed for selling non-compliant ones??? (If anyone remembers, that must have been a few years ago.)
Here's the link to the old thread. Very funny! (I googled site:ricochet.com knobbly carrots and it popped right up.)
We must have a thing for oddly-shaped produce.
Feb '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Milt Rosenberg discussed this a few weeks ago.
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Casey, have you gone bananas?
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Cutlass
Paul, excellent point. Nor am I bananas over the current headline, which is ripe for change, and your suggestion is definitely a-peel-ing. Still, I'd understand if the author doesn't care to monkey around with it.
I just felt the poor banana deserved a majestic title, for a change. You know, prop up its dignity a little.
Aug '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Heh.
Cutlass:
So is there any way to replicate or reengineer an extinct banana?
There are a few stands of Big Mike here and there that survived the Panama Banana Pandemic, but not enough for commercial export. However, as Mrs K and ljt have pointed out, there are other varieties of tasty bananas out there, it's just that we Westerners don't know much about them -- yet:
Sweet stories, ljt and Mrs K.
May '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
What a fascinating post! As someone alluded to, the banana question raises the question I have about a lot of food, from apples to Ring Dings: is it my taste buds, my brain, or do certain foods no longer taste as good as they used to for some objective reason. Oh, also, in the opposite direction, cantaloupes taste better...
Jul '10
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Here's the link to the old thread. Very funny! (I googled site:ricochet.com knobbly carrots and it popped right up.)
We must have a thing for oddly-shaped produce. · 2 hours ago
Dear M S Rattlesnake
Had to laugh. I posted that comment in all sincerity then left for the day. When I returned and saw all the comments that followed, got such a kick out of them. I knew then that the Ricochet community was going to be a hoot! Thanks for finding the orig. Tho, how ever did you remember "knobby carrots?"
Jun '11
Re: The Decline and Fall of the Banana
Of all the SKU's in a Wal*Mart store the one that shows up on the most cash register receipts is the banana. But think how many more they'd sell if they tasted like the ones we ate in the 50's.