Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Yes, We Have No Bananas (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In the late 19th century, bananas, a fruit that had been popular for thousands of years, suddenly became a mass market sensation. However, just a few decades after it was popularized, the industry had to completely change what was grown due to a pestilence. As a result, the bananas that most people eat today are very different than the bananas that everyone ate before the Second World War. Learn more about bananas, and why your grandparents didn't eat the same kind,

Starting point is 00:00:31 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. There's a great deal of uncertainty regarding the origin of the banana.

Starting point is 00:01:17 It isn't as if there's a whole lot of archaeological evidence of bananas, and if you've ever had bananas in your kitchen for more than a few days, you probably understand why. The location that most people agree was probably the home to the banana was Papua New Guinea, and it might first have been domesticated around 10,000 years ago. The domestication of the banana probably occurred well before the domestication of rice. Bananas are actually pretty easy to grow in tropical climate so long as you have reasonably good soil. While the banana plant may have originated in Pocahpan, New Guinea, that wasn't where it was popularized and spread. The best guess, and again it's a guess, as is everything about early bananas, is that the banana found their way to what is today the Philippines, and from there rapidly spread throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania around 10,000 to 7,000 years ago. The spread of the banana is very difficult to track, but we do know that wherever it went, people created new hybrids and varietals.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Most people aren't aware of it, but there are a large number of it. of banana varietals around the world. And it's shocking because unlike other fruits like apples, most people only eat one kind of banana. They come in all shapes and sizes. In the genus Musa, which is where all bananas are classified, there are over 50 different species and over a thousand subspecies. In addition to yellow bananas, you can find some that are brown, green, red, and even blue. The blue Java banana supposedly has a texture similar to ice cream and tastes a bit like vanilla, but I can't say I've ever had one. We begin to learn more about bananas as they start to appear in ancient writings. They appeared all over Southeast Asia and South Asia about 2,000 years

Starting point is 00:02:52 after they were domesticated. There are Buddhist texts from around 600 BC that mention bananas. Also, many Hindu Vedas mentioned bananas. We know Alexander the Great encountered bananas when he arrived in India. Arab traders brought bananas to eastern Africa in the 5th and 6th centuries. Islamic Moors brought bananas with them when they conquered the Iberian Peninsula, and for a time the bananas grown in Granada were considered the best in the Arab world. The word banana is believed to be of African origin. It probably comes from the word banan, from the Wolof language from what is today Senegal, and from there it became banana in Spanish and Portuguese. It was the Spanish and Portuguese who brought bananas to the Americas. As it did in pretty much every tropical climate, it flourished in places such as Brazil and in the Caribbean. It wasn't until the late 19th century, however, that bananas became big business. Up until that point, they weren't a major crop.

Starting point is 00:03:44 They were grown for local food and very limited export. They simply couldn't survive the long journey on most wooden sailing ships. They were popularized by the United Fruit Company out of the United States. I previously did an entire episode on the creation of Banana Republics in Central America, which were primarily created by the United Fruit Company, bribing and arm-twisting the governments there. I'm not going to rehash the story, but suffice to decide. that bananas suddenly became big business, big enough to influence governments. What I do want to focus on in this episode is the type of banana that they grew. The banana varietal, which became popular

Starting point is 00:04:19 in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was the Gromichel, or as it was colloquially known in the United States, the Big Mike. The Gromichel had a lot of properties which made it a great banana for export. It had a thick rind, which made it relatively durable, and it grew in tight bunches which made it easy to ship. Most importantly, it had a great taste, which was one of the big reasons why it became so popular so fast. That varietal spread quickly, and soon it was the dominant banana grown all over the world for export. Smaller varietals were still grown for local domestic consumption, but the gromishel was the one that drove the industry. As can happen when you rely on a single monocrop, it is subject to disease, and that is exactly what happened.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Sometime in the 19th century, a fungus is believed to have appeared in Southeast Asia, and it began to spread among certain banana varietals. It was reported in Australia as early as 1878, and it eventually found its way to Central America. The fungus was Fusarium oxysporum, or as it commonly became known, Panama disease. It was a nasty fungus that had a particular fondness for the Gromichel banana. It is a wilting disease that would cause the entire plant to die. Not just that, but if infected bananas were to get on a ship, they could destroy the entire shipment en route, and possibly destroy everything in the warehouse when it arrived. For several decades, banana plantations managed to keep it somewhat in check, even though the

Starting point is 00:05:42 fungus was resistant to fungicides. In the early 20th century, began to cause problems with the banana supply. In fact, the song, Yes, We Have No Bananas, was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cone about a Greek store owner who had no bananas in stock, and he also began every sentence with the word, yes. It was number one on the record charts for five weeks in 1923. The problem with Panama disease didn't go away. By the early 1950s, it began to devastate large plantations all over Central America, which was, and still is, the biggest banana-growing region of the world. Hundreds of thousands of acres were taken out of production due to Panama disease across multiple countries. Soon, wholesalers didn't even want to sell bananas,

Starting point is 00:06:25 lest they get an infected bunch. Panama disease is to the this day, one of the most devastating blights to affect any agricultural crop in recent memory. What was needed was a new banana varietal that was resistant to Panama disease. And this was found, in, of all places, a greenhouse in England. It was the Cavendish Banana. The Cavendish was named after William Cavendish, the Sixth Duke of Devonshire, who received the bananas in 1834 from what is today the country of Mauritius. He grew the bananas in the greenhouse at his home in Chatsworth House. The Camindish banana went into commercial production in 1909, but it never really took off until the great banana crisis

Starting point is 00:07:05 of the 1950s. The Camadish banana was slightly larger, a bit more curved, and it had a bit blander taste. But most importantly, it was resistant to Panama disease. The Camadish went into production and quickly became the banana for export. Many people who were around back then will swear that the bananas they had growing up tasted better than the bananas of today. And they aren't crazy. It really was a totally different banana. Today, 47% of all bananas produced worldwide are Camandish bananas, but that constitutes the vast majority of bananas for export. 87% of all bananas which are grown worldwide are for domestic consumption and not for export. The problem which took the gromishel out of production might now do the same thing to the

Starting point is 00:07:49 Cavendish. There is a strain of Panama disease called Tropical Race Farmers. which is now starting to attack the Cavendish plant. Both the Gromishel and the Cavendish don't have seeds, so they have to be propagated by cloning. And this means that the genetic diversity of both varietals is very low because they can't reproduce sexually. Unbeknownst to most people, most banana varietals actually do have seeds in them, and sometimes quite large. Researchers are currently working on genetically modifying or cross-breeding a version of the Cavendish, or possibly even bringing back the Gromichel, that would be more resistant to pay. Hanamah disease. So if bananas suddenly taste different in the future, there will probably be a

Starting point is 00:08:28 reason for it. One of the cultural memes about bananas that has been used for decades is the use of banana peels in cartoons as a way of making people slip and fall. Personally, I don't recall ever seeing someone slip and fall on a banana peel, so I've never understood the reference. However, it really was a thing at one point. In the early 20th century, when bananas were becoming popular, it was common for people to just toss the peel onto the ground. A fresh banana peel isn't that big of a deal, but as it starts to rot, it becomes a slimy, slippery mess. While it was mostly a vaudeville gag, the city of St. Louis, Missouri actually outlawed the throwing or casting of banana rinds on public thoroughfares. In 2014, the Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to two Japanese researchers who actually measured the coefficient of friction of a banana peel on a linoleum surface.

Starting point is 00:09:18 bananas are also radioactive. Yep, all of them are. However, this is nothing to be worried about. The radioactivity comes from a naturally occurring isotope, potassium 40. Bananas, avocados, and even you, are all naturally radioactive. This is just Gary Mansfield of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created what he called the banana equivalence dose, or BED, as a way of explaining small doses of radiation to the public. One banana equivalent's dose is equal to 0.1 microseverds. Or, to put it in more understandable terms, the radiation from one banana is the equivalent of 1% of the daily natural exposure to radiation most people receive. The annual radiation leakage from a nuclear power plant is the equivalent of 6.8 BEDs a day. An x-ray would be

Starting point is 00:10:07 equivalent to 40, an average commercial flight is 400, and a CT scan is 70,000. And, and just for reference, a lethal dose of radiation would be 35 million banana equivalent doses. There is one other banana-related topic that I should probably address. What is the difference between a banana and a plantain? Well, for all practical purposes, they're just different varietals of the same thing. A banana is just a sweeter dessert fruit that doesn't need to be cooked. A plantain is a tougher, more starchy, less sweet version that usually does need to be cooked. They're usually baked, boiled, or fried. Plantains are commonly served in the Caribbean in dishes like Mofungo, as well as in Central America and parts of Africa.

Starting point is 00:10:52 The various banana varietals exist a long as spectrum, so there is no clear-cut point where something is a banana or a plantain because there are some that are a little bit of each. One of my fondest banana memories, if that is a thing, was traveling through the islands of the Pacific, where fresh ladyfinger bananas would be picked right off the tree for breakfast. bananas have become a staple crop for the entire world. They're a quick and easy snack that people of all ages love, and it is now a multi-billion dollar industry. And it's all due to a plant which was domesticated 10,000 years ago, in a valley in Papua New Guinea. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

Starting point is 00:11:34 The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes. It's run by a Greek, and he keeps good things to eat, but you should hear him speak. When you ask him anything, he never answers, no, he just yesses you to death, and as he takes your dough, he tells you, yes, of course, we have no bananas.

Starting point is 00:12:26 We have no bananas today. We've string beans and onions, cabarges and scallions, and all kinds of fruits.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Yes, We Have No Bananas (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.