Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Bananas

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer Lydia Bugg (1900HOTDOG, the ‘Trailer Park Boys’ comic anthology) and comedian/podcaster Teresa Lee ('You Can Tell Me Anything' podcast, album 'We're Still Doing This') for a look at why bananas are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Bananas. Known for being fruit. Famous for being a patron pick. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why bananas are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Two wonderful guests return this week, Lydia Bug and Teresa Lee. Lydia Bug is a fantastic comedy writer. You can read her columns every week on 1-900-HOT-DOG, which is the best comedy website. 1-900-HOT-DOG. She's there. Many other friends of the show are there. It was created by Sean Baby and Robert Brockway. It's the best thing you can read. Also, you may have seen Lydia's

other writing on Reductress.com or in the new Trailer Park Boys comic book anthology or all kinds of other fantastic things you can read. There's such a range. Really great. And Teresa Lee is a wonderful comic and podcaster. Her latest comedy album is called We're Still Doing This. Her podcast is called You Can Tell Me Anything. I feel like both things have amazing stories, and especially its guests bring a lot in and You Can Tell Me Anything, and just both are great. There's so many other Teresa things, too. I am thrilled to have these kinds of amazing guests for this long-awaited podcast topic. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like

native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, acknowledge Lydia recorded this on the traditional land of the Shawnee, Eastern Cherokee, and Sa'atza Yaha peoples, acknowledge Teresa recorded this on the traditional land of the Shawnee, Eastern Cherokee, and Sa'atza Yaha peoples. Acknowledge Teresa recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about bananas. Yes, an episode about bananas. Let me tell you something, folks. If you are not a patron of this podcast, you have no idea how much fun is going on behind the scenes with the patron topic selection process. It is more

than suggesting, more than voting. There's like fan campaigning in a very upbeat and fun way for a lot of these topics. This topic of bananas is the prototypical example of patrons of this show making a topic happen and having a bunch of fun doing it. Very special thank you here to Sean Stringfield. Sean, thank you. Also to Joshua Graves. Joshua, thank you. And to many other patrons who basically became a banana fandom or banana hive or there were a lot of emoji. There were a lot of passionate state, but it was really, really, really fun, really joyful because it's just a fruit. And they got so into it, which I feel fits the whole spirit of the podcast, too. It was awesome. fits the whole spirit of the podcast too. It was awesome. It also turns out bananas are an amazing topic for this podcast. We got an amazing episode out of it. So please sit back or peel a banana and chow down. Get that potassium. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Lydia Bug and Teresa Lee. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Lydia, Teresa, thank you both so much for each coming back and doing this. And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either we can start,

their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either we can start, but how do you feel about bananas? I can go. As structurally, I enjoy them. They're cool looking. I like the idea of them. They're fun to draw. But as a practical food, not my favorite fruit,

not my least favorite. Good in smoothies, not good when you need water. It makes me thirsty and sad. I like that you appreciate the engineering. That's cool. Yeah. Like they really, like if they were, I mean, if they take, like my favorite fruits are more like juicy berries. Like I wouldn't, it wouldn't fit. I get it. Like it would be weird. But if it had that like pleasure of a juicy berry and the excitement of like a slippery peel, like a hundred percent, but you know, you can't have everything. Sometimes you have the boy band, you can't be the baby and the bad boy. You know, you need a pick, you know? I do like the peel too.

It's like opening a present every time you eat one. It's like, it's every time you eat one. It's like it's always wrapped up. Yeah. Or I let one go kind of for a while ripeness wise and then I'm opening the peel like, okay, let's see. How's it doing? Yeah. It's a mystery box. I do.

I love that they're always like they're very cartoonish. And, you know, as a as a joyer of cartoons and growing up watching like just silly like i still i love cartoons so donkey kong all of like you know video games they're just like so fun they're fun they're iconic and iconic yeah um i was a banana for halloween two years in a row okay same costume or did you like was it banana two banana one no just the same costume i was in like uh i was an administrative assistant for a company and i found that people liked me better when i was the banana interesting they like they love the banana costume i wore it they went wild for it and i was like

let's just keep this train going the next year i was like i'm gonna be a banana again was the company a jamba juice no it was it was just a paper billing company and i had to like get people excited for halloween as part of my job So I tried to do like big goofy costumes. And the first one was a wizard and no one liked it. A lot of people were like, I don't know why they were like offended by the wizard with like a big beard and a staff, not a fan. So the next year when I was banana and they were like, like I was walking across the factory floor and someone yelled, Hey banana. Like they loved it. Oh, man. I love this picture.

I just opened it. It's great. Because I like that there's bangs hanging out. There's a lot going on here. Like, I was expecting, there's like the dancing banana I've seen, but this is like, I like this. I haven't seen this version. It's like half peeled.

You have like an office name tag hanging off of your zipper. Yeah, I had to have that visible so i had to attach it to the banana costume somehow and my only option was like the face hole so i'm a banana with a name tag hanging out of my mouth yeah and folks i i always ask the guests hey if you have a picture you'd like for the social media post let me know and lydia very nicely sent out a picture of her and the banana outfit in this story so just look up the socials at cif pod you'll see it it's it's a very 2013 picture of me yeah i have emo bags that are like popping out of the banana face hole i feel like bananas are a pretty joyful fruit we'll talk about other backgrounds and valences

and things they have. Historical racism and imperialism and stuff. I only know good things about the fruit in a vacuum, you know? Like it tastes real good and it's pretty nutritious and there's a bunch of kinds. Like Lydia, I'm sure what you, I think you said you dressed as a banana two years in a row. And I assume you got the costume, wore it, and then just stored it for a year. Because you don't get rid of that. You're going to do it again. The joy will return. I still have it, I think.

I almost couldn't find a picture of myself in it. It was like, maybe I'll just drag it out, put it on, take a picture right now. Because I think I have it somewhere. I love it. Well, I can't believe I was just... Because when you said... I've done this pod with cards, but when you said we're doing bananas i was trying to be like yeah i wonder what we're gonna learn about this fruit that it was like it's a venus fly trap that killed flies like

but now it makes more sense there's like politics around it not its fault it's not its fault it would be fun if me and Lydia just pretended like, Teresa, how could you forget the banana tragedy of 1972? How dare you? That is so bad. You know, when all the people slipped on the... I'm just a banana enthusiast. I'm a fan of the look and taste of the banana,

but I don't know much about the banana. How do you guys peel a banana? Or is this, am I derailing? I want to know because I'm curious, but we could save it. Is there more than one way? Yeah, I feel like there's only one way. It's the top. Well, what side's the top? Because I've heard that we've been doing it wrong, but I don't know if what's we, what group is we, you know, who am I talking to here? I go from the end with the big stem that connects to the bunch. Same. Yeah, that's like the handle that you can easily grab and break.

So I feel like that's how it's designed to be done. Like that's the intuitive way. Yeah, but it always breaks, right? And so I like, this is not that new, but i feel like not in childhood but i saw one of those like you're doing it wrong it's supposed to be from the bottom and when you do it it comes off so nicely and then you hold the bottom like a little cone it's oh debatable if there's even a real right way to eat things but i think monkeys maybe eat it that way i like don't believe you though because i feel like if you the bot there's no's no handle there. So I'm going to, I know for a fact that I would smush it.

I would just smush the bottom and it would kind of go everywhere. I feel like. Okay. Well, I didn't make it up, but I will find the link and share it with y'all later. Okay. Because I definitely have only ever thought to do the stem end and also lost a bunch of tops of the fr fruity part in the stem and that i'm just like well can't be better than this life is hard like but maybe it's just better the other way

i've never lost a top in the it always opens pretty easily for me i don't know maybe i'm really good at opening bananas maybe that's a skill that i don't realize i have it's like those videos of somebody who's amazing at filling a box with a product and they're just like like that's you with bananas just like a whole bunch instantly open like like i have i have several bananas here and i want to go grab two and test both ways now that i've looked at this link can i grab it really quick? Yeah, I'll go get it and then I'll take a some of the stats while you test things. Yeah, that'll be great. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Lydia has returned with a whole bunch and she's going to do experiments while I bring us into the first chunk of the show. Because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called These Stats Are Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. And thank you both for dancing.

That was submitted by Erica Salazar. And of course, perfectly lines up. Also, like, shout out to folks who sent suggestions based on the banana boat song i just i don't i don't think i should perform it but like great either way we have a new name for this every week please make them as silly and wacky as possible submit to sifpod on twitter or to sifpod at gmail.com and there's a bunch of numbers here about the banana. And the first number is three million tons. Wow. Three million tons, which is, I know none of us can conceive of it,

but it's how much banana the U.S. consumes each year. Oh, wow. That's a lot. In one year, Americans eat three million tons of bananas. That means we consume even more just of food, which I wouldn't have. Like if you had to sum up how much how many tons of food we consume. I don't know if I would have said 3 million tons at all. Yeah, that feels high for that. I think it makes sense to me.

I eat them a lot for breakfast. And I know little when you're little, it's a very popular food to give kids. So that kind of makes sense. Like daycare is a lot of time. It's really hard to choke on a lot for breakfast. And I know when you're little, it's a very popular food to give kids. So that kind of makes sense. Like daycare is a lot of time. It's really hard to choke on a banana. Right. It's mushy. Yeah.

And are we counting bananas in ingredients like banana bread or are we just counting bananas by itself? Like does it count towards the weight of this three million if you're having a Jamba juice? Oh, I think it's leaving out like artificial banana flavor, but I think it's including all the bananas that get processed into something. Gotcha. Like, like, because the other... Net banana. Yeah, because the other thing about this number is, and this coming from an amazing series of articles by Daniel Stone for National Geographic in 2016. But the other thing about this number is the U.S. is almost exclusively a banana importer.

The U.S. grows less than one hundredth of one percent of the world total. Like we produce almost no bananas at all because we're not the right region for it. Yeah. But also because of like all the I feel like the idea of the banana republic is very much about US taking over governments, which not to put a downer on it, but it's like, that's what I think of when I think of us meddling in foreign affairs in the name of quote unquote democracy. And, you know, we don't grow those here at all. Right. Yeah. But the next number here is simple. It is one.

And one is because according to this different National Geographic pieces by Kelly Nowakowski, bananas are the number one fruit in the world. By tonnage, they are the top fruit that we grow in the entire world. The next most popular is watermelons by weight. Well, that's cheating. And then that's followed by apples, grapes, and oranges. I do think that's cheating. Watermelons are so much heavier on a single...

It's not fair. I mean, come on. Yeah, it's like a car. Like, come on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not come on. Yeah, it's like a car. Like, come on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not that hungry. Yeah, grapes are really like the one that's getting cheated there. That's true.

Because they're so light and tiny. It's probably grapes is actually number one. Justice for grapes, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, bananas. And that number is also counting plantains separately, even though they're very genetically similar. So if you include plantains, the banana family is even more far and away the top fruit in the entire world. Wow.

And they grow high up, right? So they're literally a top fruit. Oh, right. It's very cheesy. I'm sorry. But the next number is five, because five is the average number of bananas consumed per day by people in Rwanda. And that's the highest average in the world. But it brings us into what's going to be a short takeaway within the stats segment. Fun structure.

So going into takeaway number one. There are two very different roles for bananas in the world's food supply. And one of the roles is what we're used to in a lot of the U.S. of like a yellow banana that is sweet and you just eat it raw. But then there's a whole other kind of cooking banana, which includes stuff like plantains. Oh, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I love plantains and like human food. So good. Yeah. Yeah. And it is apparently very genetically similar, but a lot of the world eats many, many, many like savory, starchy bananas. Some of them are green colored. And Rwanda is one of these places.

They eat a variety called the East African Highland banana. And it's basically treated like maybe an American would think of wheat or rice or another like foundational grain, you know. Like they'll mash up bananas, turn them into flour, turn them in all another like foundational grain you know like they'll mash up bananas you turn them into flour turn them in all sorts of different you know like basic staples so they're eating bananas very differently like a sweet potato almost right like it's got that mushy oh i guess a potato too you can mash but i plantain and sweet potatoes to me remind me of each other yeah exactly that's neat i so are there a whole bunch of different kinds of bananas because i only think of one and then plantain but there are different

types of plantains too i've seen the little yellow not plantains but or the green ones you're talking about in taiwan like they're sort of shaped differently and smaller oh yeah i've seen the really really tiny ones at the grocery store i brought some home once and i was like when i saw them in my head i was like teeny beninis and it was really funny to me and then i sat it on the counter and my husband walked in the door and pointed at him and said teeny beninis and i was like we're perfect for each other that's like that's so sweet what a soulmate moment yeah the teeny benini soulmate that should be a new tiktok challenge like you know pick up a fruit say the first thing that comes to mind put it on your and no this is too

complicated but it sounds in theory it sounds like one of those like tiktok things you know to be like did your husband say the same words if he doesn't say teeny-baninis, divorce him. TikTok says so. We'll get into it a little more later, but the yellow store-bought American banana is mostly just one kind. But according to the book What Have Plants Ever Done for Us, which is by Stephen Harris, the curator of the Oxford University Herbaria, there's a whole genus called Musa that bananas are in, and there are more than 70 species and subspecies. So that includes plantains, too, and there's just all sorts of different colors, shapes, textures. And then with this takeaway, there's this basic sweet versus savory difference.

Because with a sweet banana, eating five of them in a row is is doable it's just like a different experience than the savory kind a lot of sugar yeah but it varies yeah like the the world has a lot of different ways of thinking of and eating of bananas it's all going on that's cool i can see why it would work really well because like part of uh if you make a lot of vegan recipes, they'll use banana in place of egg because it's such a good binder. Wow. It's, it's got that like mushy texture and it's sticky. So you can kick out most eggs, like, especially if you make banana bread, kick out most eggs,

replace it with banana and it'll be moist and hold together. Well, still. That's an amazing tip. I didn't know that. Like whatever. Good to know. Could just keep going with the bananas and the banana bread. Great.

Yeah. Yeah, and this is staple kind is the most common in non-U.S. countries where they can grow their own bananas. Because if you have to import all of your main staple, that's kind of hard. But everywhere from East Africa to Indonesia to Brazil to parts of India, there are various kinds of, like, that are a food you really lean on, not just a sweet fruit treat. Very cool. But yeah, so that was the takeaway within the stats.

Back into the stats, next number is 1899. So 1899 is a year. That's the official year of the founding of the United Fruit Company. And that's kind of the main perpetrator of the Banana Republic stuff that we were talking about. There's also like a bunch of internet stuff and podcasts about this. I really like Adam Todd Brown's work on it. He's the first friend of mine I remember covering it. The podcast Behind the Bastards by Robert Evans did them. Stuff You Missed in History Class, NPR's ThruLine. There's like, you can get the whole friend of mine i remember covering it the podcast behind the bastards by robert evans did them stuff you missed in history class npr's through line there's like you can get the whole story of them anywhere but um the united fruit company formed from some mergers in 1899 by the late 1920s they had 67 000 employees they owned 1.6 million acres of land, and they were worth over $100 million in 1920s money.

And they are one of the biggest companies kind of ever to exist, especially as far as their influence goes. Dang. And it makes a lot of sense because we really need fruit, but we don't get a lot of it here, right? We're doing California. We don't grow a lot of it here, so we got to get it from somewhere. We need fruit, right? It's on the food pyramid, or is that big fruit making me think I need fruit? I don't know.

Yeah, I think we grow a lot of fruit in the U.S., but not bananas specifically. Oh, okay. It's both not the right climate, and it's been sort of delegated to countries we commercially took over so that's that's been what happened i think yeah i guess because i'm from the midwest i'm just used to seeing so much corn and beans and corn and beans and cattle but no like fruit anything you know grown there i realize in there and it's because they don't grow up but there's like no famous banana state in the u.s like there's not florida oranges or or illinois corn iowa corn like uh apples a lot of places there's no like oh we're connecticut connecticut bananas that's our thing like that's not going on there's like fried bananas at state fairs oh yeah oh yeah this

is interesting because when i didn't even really like we really do there's a fried bananas at state fairs. Oh yeah. This is interesting. Cause when I didn't even really like, we really do. There's a flux of bananas everywhere. And, and I could see America being like, no banana prices go up, but it's like bananas are just, I feel like they're almost like there,

but also not like when I try to think of like staple foods made with bananas, it's like, it's not like banana breads, like the staple of all breads in america so it's like huh it does feel like this weird like ancillary but also very prominent thing whereas like for example like rice in taiwan if you were like we have a rice shortage it'd be like a huge problem like there's certain foods that are like very part of the cuisine and i'm like i

don't our banana is like part of american cuisine but we consume a lot. Or is it just we just were like marketed it and then we just eat them. Like that's how it feels. Yeah. What is integral? What dishes are integral besides like banana splits? What else is like a banana dish? People do frozen chocolate coated bananas. I know there's like a like the blue frozen bananas and arrested

development but those are like a real thing at the grocery store yeah um because i think you're right they're like incredibly common but never like central in american food like it's just and all the time fun thing and then if we had a shortage, we'd be like, eh. Because apples have like apple pie. Yeah, that's interesting. Like there's so many iconic, very like quote unquote American, you know, like emotional dishes. I'm like, I don't know if I can think of any banana ones. Yeah. And the next number here is all about the marketing of bananas. The next number is 1944.

That is the year when the United Fruit Company launched a marketing campaign featuring Miss Chiquita. And the main source here is a book called Banana, A Global History by Lorna Piotti Farnell. Miss Chiquita started out as a dancing, singing cartoon banana, and later it became a Woman with a Fruit Hat. Both of them were based on actor Carmen Miranda and her dance in a fruit hat in, in particular, a 1940s movie called The Gang's All Here. But either way, it was a huge hit song and character. And Lorna Piatti Farnell says that the song got on the radio as just a song. And in the 1940s, it was airing as many as 370 times per day on U.S. radio stations. Wow.

And Chiquita took off so well that by 1992, United Fruit officially changed its company name to Chiquita. So the same company that did and kind of does still all the Banana Republic stuff, it's now Chiquita. They're just not as famous under that name. Did they also not pay Carmen Miranda to design a mascot after her? Did she get money for that? I believe she was not paid, and no one ever did anything about it. As far as I can tell.

Wow. Wow. Can you imagine a bread company just being like, Jennifer Lawrence is our mascot without asking? Oh, yeah. And also like with the copyright and likeness stuff, like so they did Miss Chiquita in the 1940s. In the 1950s, United Fruit orchestrated a coup in Guatemala and overthrew the democratically elected government. orchestrated a coup in Guatemala and overthrew the democratically elected government. I feel like they were up to such bad stuff.

They were like, ah, copyright infringement or whatever. Sure, just throw that in. Yeah, and then poor Carmen Randa's like, I am the face of a coup now. Without my permission. Yeah. And the next number here is 2014, the year in the modern day, 2014. That is when soccer star Donny Alves ate a banana that got thrown at him during a game. Wow.

Okay. And this is another kind of dark story. Oh, I oh or i thought that was like a bad move like he grabbed it out of the air and then like peeled it and ate it that's what i was picturing like as like a i don't care that you disrespect me i will enjoy this fruit yeah yeah like thanks for the fruit idiot like i don't know. I pictured this being cool. But I didn't think about, yeah, why they were throwing it. It's both things. I thought, you know, people in Tennessee, people throw catfish on the ice in hockey as a joke.

So I don't know what people throw. That's cool. Like the octopuses in Detroit? That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah. But yeah, because this is, the banana was thrown for racist reasons and then donnie alves turned it around uh there's there's like one story in a long history of sports fan racism in all places in all sports but one form of that is that when

darker skinned and non-european players are team, especially in Europe, they'll often get monkey chants and stuff and then also bananas thrown at them. It's horrible. Yeah, people are horrible. And NBC News says that there's cases at least back to the 1970s of banana peels and whole bananas being thrown. But then Dani Alves is Brazilian and he was in 2014, he was playing in the Spanish League for Barcelona's team. In one game, he lined up to take a corner kick, and somebody threw a banana at him. And since the game has kind of paused for a corner kick, he decided to pick up the banana, peel and eat part of it, and then go on with the corner kick. And then the results are like as positive as they can be. CNN found out

that the fan received a lifetime ban from the stadium. Alves received widespread praise. He also posted a video clip to his Instagram with a caption joking that his dad always told him to eat bananas to prevent cramps when when doing sports. And so he tried to like turn this around and not let it get to him yeah it seems like a bad response to it you know just absorbing it and continuing to do great at whatever he's doing it's the soccer thing you know yeah did he make the goal do you know did he like then go off and like kick a really good goal i know that i know his team won i don't know if he scored on that play or anything yeah yeah so that guy didn't affect his day at all.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, I, you know, it's there's there's no point trying to figure out racist actions, but being like, oh, what do you like bananas? Like, yes, I'm a person. They're very good. They're really tasty and healthy and stuff.

Of course. Yeah. And they are good for cramps, too. Or someone else told me that as well. I've heard. My mom told me that. Yeah. Yeah, and they are good for cramps, too. Or someone else told me that as well, I've heard. My mom told me that, yeah. Potassium's good for cramps. Exactly. Yeah, it's got a bunch of,

and apparently calcium and magnesium, it all helps. It's a very good cramp-fighting food. So, yeah, it's just true. All right, off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters,

and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more

is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And remember, no running in the halls. But yeah, and then the last number here will bring us into one of the other takeaways for the main episode. The number is 1834. It's another year, 1834.

That is the year when a British lord named Duke William George Spencer Cavendish funded the development of a new banana variety called the Cavendish. I've heard that word, but I didn't know it was a banana. I didn't think about them this way until researching, but it turns out basically every banana you get in a U.S. store is called a Cavendish. And that brings us into takeaway number two. Dessert bananas used to taste a lot worse and also might have briefly tasted even better. One more time. Bananas used to taste a lot worse and also briefly might have tasted even better.

That's because there have been a few stages of just one banana being the main yellow banana in the u.s and elsewhere i see so we decided to be like it was too good let's go back to something in the middle where it's not as good but not as bad why do we go away from the where the better one it would be very american capitalism to like withhold the good one but but there was a banana fungus that wiped out another variety called the Gros Michel that apparently tasted better and used to be more popular. Darn fungus. Yeah.

And yeah, there's a lot of banana progression stuff. The key sources are Stephen Harris' book and Lorna Piotti Farnell's book. Also a piece, but for National Geographic by Miles Karp and a piece for BBC Future by Chris Baraniuk. Because there are a bunch of more than 70 species in the genus Musa, like we said. Almost all the edible bananas tend to be the result of hybrids between two species called Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. two species called Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. And Lorna Piatti-Farnell says humans started combining those as early as 1000 BC. So for thousands of years, we've had

something, you know, kind of approaching a banana in a store. Because bananas used to be a lot smaller and also full of terrible seeds. Not terrible in general, but for humans. Yeah, I was gonna say, like you said, not edible. Yeah, what are these inedible bananas like? Yeah, they are apparently very small. Stephen Harris says that some of them would be smaller than a human's little finger. And then I'm dropping a picture here of one of them cut open, because they are full of what my sources describe as, quote, tooth shattering seeds. Like, it's not just that you're like, oh, this texture is weird. It will like destroy your human mouth if you try to just chomp through it without being careful. Oh, interesting.

And apparently also this hybridization had started independently in Southeast Asia and in Africa. Both places came up with it. But from there, the world still has many varieties. But in U.S. stores, you're going to get usually just a yellow banana from a big company. And that type is a variety called the Cavendish banana. In other parts of the world, it's not so popular. banana in other parts of the world it's not so popular stephen harris says that some people in brazil have come up with a mean nickname for the cavendish which is banana de agua which is portuguese for water banana as in it has no flavor it tastes like water so there's some parts of the

world where they're like that's junk get that out of out of here. Burned. I don't want it. Well, I want their bananas then. Like, oh no. Yeah. Probably amazing. Yeah. Yeah, they're probably really good. But yeah, and so we, I said like bananas used to taste much worse

because they were these seedy, tooth-shattering kind. And then by the mid-20th century, we had an amazing variety called the Gros Michel, which is French for Big Michael. And I couldn't find why. I don't know why it's called that. But this banana, old sources say it had a creamier texture and a richer flavor. There are also a few people with, like, isolated enough plots that they're still growing it. They just think they can keep it safe from fungus.

enough plots that they're still growing it. They just think they can keep it safe from fungus. BBC interviewed Rob Guzman, who's a banana farmer in Hawaii growing 35 varieties. He says the grow Michelle's one of his favorites, quote, it's almost like what a Cavendish would taste like, but sort of amplified, sweeter, and somehow artificial, like how grape-flavored bubble gum differs from an actual grape, end quote huh so it's like so good it tastes like candy apparently it's so descriptive yet so little information yeah like i'm like i have no idea how that tastes but good words describing it yeah yeah an artificial banana tastes so different from regular banana to me i can't really imagine a marriage of the two. Because to me, it's like someone just came up with a flavor and was like, I'm going to call this banana.

But it doesn't really taste like banana. Because I know some people who don't like artificial banana flavor. And I just like both as separate things a whole lot. Yeah. Like there used to be a candy called Runtz, where they had like big yellow bananas. Love them. And those are good. And basically a space alien compared to a real banana. But it's great. Yeah. I like Laffy Taffy banana. But yeah, it's not banana. And we'll also link, there's this BBC piece they talk about, there's a myth that that artificial banana flavor is based on the old Gros Michel, and that's why it doesn't feel like a regular banana. But it turns out artificial banana flavor actually comes from a chemical compound called isoamyl acetate that is in both kinds. There's just probably more of it in a Gros Michel.

So it's still like connected to the fruit either way. It's like when we're in like a thousand years when we're all eating, just like pushing buttons to eat chemicals. I can make a banana, but I still, you know what I mean? Printing out my chemicals from my computer for my lunch. Yeah. Listen, we have to make an agreement when we're all on the snow piercer we bring some of the isoamyl acetate right we make it fun we're gonna have a good time when we're eating our george jetson pills on the snow piercer so what happened is the world grew many varieties but the big like banana industry from united fruit

and others grew these grow michelle's because they're the tastiest and then in the 1950s a fungal disease called fusarium oxysporum which got nicknamed panama disease it kills the roots of banana plants and so then that wiped out the Gros Michel plants. But for some reason, Cavendish plants survived. And so the industry said, OK, well, this this all right tasting banana is pretty similar and it doesn't die of this. So we're just going to switch over to that. Gotcha. Fungus. It must have been a hard time for people back then when you had these really good bananas and then you tried like they're like this is a new banana forever now and it was like new coke and they were

like can we go back to the old banana and they were like no literally they're all dead so this is just it now i wonder if those fungus after eating the roots would like taste like banana oh the fungus yeah now i want to eat the banana maybe the banana fungus is where it's at especially with this being in the 1950s i'm imagining like famously inflexible 1950s white americans and you're like it's okay we have fungus now and they're like, it's okay. We have fungus now. And they're like, I'm furious. I'm getting back in my tail fin car. Mushrooms are a fungus. That's true. I guess that's the word. And yeah, when I hear fungus, I think of like moldy bathrooms, but like, like woodier mushrooms, like in Chinese cooking, they're like, they don't, I mean, I guess they are fungus, but

like, I wouldn't think of that when I think of, they're like these crispy, crunchy little, like, they look like seaweed, which you're right. I guess white America would be like, what the heck is seaweed? They'd have to just rebrand it and not call it fungus, call it like fun time crunch or something and package it. Root killer. Make it sound like really cool and aggressive. Oh yeah.

For men. Root killer. it root killer make it sound like really cool and aggressive oh yeah for men a root killer for men like i'm having a tactical mushroom i'm really enjoying it tactical mushroom but then the also the next stage here is this switch might have to happen again because Panama disease has not gone away. According to National Geographic, in the 1990s, it developed a mutation called Panama disease TR4. And that can kill the roots of a Cavendish plant. But we've known about it since the 90s. It's like slowly reached different regions.

it's like slowly reached different regions and there's no known solution other than cultivating a new banana type or genetic engineering what we have the last place it's reaching is the americas apparently it turned up for the first time in colombia in 2019 in peru in 2021 you you might read articles that say like, bananas are going extinct. And it's like semi-true. Like for a couple decades, a fungus is beginning to maybe impact the one we have. And so there are people working on, you know, a new cultivation, something else. Well, we're great at dealing with diseases. So I think it's going to be fine. We have lots of experience with that. Yeah.

Let's vaccinate all the cavendish bananas get them boosted they'll be fine pour some bleach on them whatever you know i definitely earlier this week i definitely had an article about omicron and an article about panama disease tr4 in like different tabs in my browser. It really looms in this context. But yeah. And there's also a piece of good news is that in 2012, human scientists sequenced the banana genome. So hopefully that opens some doors to like genetic engineering, a banana that doesn't die of this stuff.

Making real human bananas and pajamas oh can we combine can we work something out here i'm not eating another banana ever again until they wear pajamas that's the future i want i love that show it's so good it's cute it's really good yeah i felt bad for the actors because how do they see through those costumes? And they have to come downstairs. Not safe. Yeah.

It's probably soft if you fall. It's like squishy. That's true. I guess maybe that's why there's something. You can't slip on a banana if you are a banana. Yeah. Fact. Yeah, just wear your safety banana and you're good.

You could do anything. Well, there's one more takeaway for the main episode. Then we got a bunch of bonus stuff. But takeaway number three. Bananas are berries that grow from herbs. No, I deny this. This is not true. This is that I put my foot down.

Yeah. Sleep on a peel. Yeah, the rest of this is just mind bending biology stuff. Bananas are berries and they grow from herbs. Turns out. Well, elaborate. Like, what is a berry? This is not a berry. So what do you mean by this?

Right. Right, because I'm lying. I agree, define berry. Define berry. Because I'm not buying this. Yeah, so it turns out, starting with the berry stuff, like modern bananas in particular, the ones with no seeds in them, are basically berries. Because a berry is a fleshy fruit without any major seeds or stones or pits or anything in them.

And so experts will often describe bananas as, quote, a leathery berry. What? I mean, strawberries have, aren't those seed things all over it? Those aren't seeds? What are those little things all over the strawberry? Those are seeds. Yeah, but they're not like, the real definer is like a big peach pit. Oh, like a big one.

Or even apple seeds, you know? Those are like too tough to really chew through. Like strawberry seeds are so tiny and liminal that it's not a big deal. I wish everyone could see your I caught you face. Like that was a really good I caught you face you just gave to Alex. Like, yes. Well, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around this because bananas also have a peel and don't berries have no casing? peel and don't berries have no casein? Yeah. And that's a perfect question because it turns out the other way they're a berry is that the peels are edible, which I've never tried to do, but

they're apparently like perfectly, totally edible. And some cuisines in India and separately Venezuela will use banana peels as, you know, just a the food like it's it's not like because i've had banana leaf things as like a wraparound food and you don't eat the leaf that's different but banana peels you can fully just eat apparently especially if they're cooked properly and they taste good oh also one just one other thing with eating banana peels it turns out modern vegetarians have figured out how to use them as a meat substitute so i'll link a few vegan blogs where they talk about like a version of bacon and also a version of pulled pork sandwiches where you can just cook up a banana peel and use that instead but i feel like i have

heard of that now that you say that yeah you can just do it i guess yeah i can see where they would be crispy and like good if you fried them good if you fry anything, I guess. It's going to be fine. That's true. I think it's the magic of frying is really the key here. I'm sensing some push from Big Banana, Big Barry, I mean, to try to gain some goodwill from the banana that uh from the banana just like kind of you know scoop it over it's like oh we're a berry yeah yeah yeah it's a berry it's a berry they're like yeah you know bananas those are ours they're those are ours they're berries but you said also

something about it grows from an herb so what does that mean like everything's a plant but what do you mean by an herb like it's like a sage or like, what are we talking about here? biologically you know you think of herbs as little sprigs of stuff to season a chicken or whatever but like like the banana tree is a as a massive herb that's what's going on that's crazy yeah yeah and the it just turns out everything about a banana plant is surprising and key source here is the new oxford book of food plants by gj vaughn and ca geisler but these oxford folks say that a banana plant is quote a tree-like herb which is anywhere from two to nine meters in height so just humongous which and you think like oh a big thing with a stalk it's probably a tree but what we think is a banana tree's trunk is actually a structure called a pseudostem.

And eventually that grows tall enough to form a flower, which grows a structure called a banana heart. And a banana heart you can eat as a whole separate vegetable. And then around the heart, it sprouts a bunch of the banana fruits, which are berries. Ah, interesting. So if you lick a banana tree, would it taste delicious? Because I feel like that's the one thing that an herb does, is just taste really good. So the tree should taste good, or else it's not an herb, I think.

Especially my partner, we've been getting into cocktails, and there's a lot of little herbs that are cocktail garnishes i'm imagining like dumping an entire banana tree it's like a little cosmo glass or something very fun to me or just a drink the size of like an outdoor swimming pool and you're like hang on let me get my garnish when the and then this last thing i sent you guys a picture for it because it's really confusing so we have an herb that grows a stem that does a flower which gets you banana berries and then underneath this herb it turns out there's like a heavy solid core structure underneath the ground that is called a corm, which is spelled C-O-R-M. And the corm allows a banana plant to reproduce asexually because this isn't these banana berries. They aren't full of seeds. Right.

And so this is a plant that's not like dropping acorns or big pits or something. What happens is the corm forms new buds underground which are called suckers and farmers can also replant these and then farm that way but basically a a underground solid structure sprouts a new pseudostem and then the old pseudostem once it forms bananas either dies or falls over it gets cut. And so you keep getting like that lasts for about two years. But secretly, there's an underground structure forming new sprouts all the time. And it's the same plant the whole time. It's like a diglet. You know how there's like, little diglet heads, but they're all connected. Yeah, wow.

they're all connected yeah wow yeah that's precisely right it's like what is it doug trio is that what it becomes oh yeah yeah yeah so they must all be connected perfect visual awesome well i think i finally understand this what makes it an herb Like this diagram helps because the trees are like one root, one stem. But this is like, it's just spreading like a fungus. Kind of, yeah. It is. Biology is weird. I think it's the upshot. Botany is strange.

Yeah, it's crazy. Opposed to it in general. You're taking an anti-botany stance that's brave i always feel weirdly proud of anything that can reproduce asexually like good for you you don't need no man you don't need no woman you're your own thing by the way uh i think both work equally well bottom peel or top peel both great oh so you've been doing this experiment this whole time i forgot to check it was below the camera frame that was why yeah yeah i just grabbed two bananas and tried them each and i was surprised that yeah the bottom works just as well it's like totally equal to me so you can just do the bottom yeah sorry i was i was gonna tell you that i forgot and then i was trying to like eat them because i didn't want to waste them wait you

know i just did two i did two yeah good but i decided to compost them because i didn't want alex to have to like edit my quietly chewing in the background bottom peel works great sweet but it still feels weird so it's like whatever you know yeah we're too old to learn new tricks you know exactly folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to lydia bug and theresa lee for simultaneously guesting on this podcast and running banana packaging experiments in the background it is amazing multitasking. I love it. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode.

This week's bonus topic, you get two whole stories. Two of them. We're talking about the origin of jokes where people slip on a banana peel and the secrets of radioactive bananas. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than six dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring bananas with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, there are two very different roles for bananas in the world's food supply. Takeaway number two, dessert bananas used to taste a lot worse and also might have briefly tasted better.

And takeaway number three, bananas are berries that grow from herbs in an incredible way. Those are the takeaways. Also, I want to throw in one extra thing we did not quite cover because bananas are just too loaded of a topic. There's a whole nother thing. Within that third takeaway, we talked about banana plant biology. There's also a thing you will probably see on the Internet stated as a fact that is like kind of true and fun to know about. a fact that is like kind of true and fun to know about. There's a lot of internet sources that will say banana plants walk, that they quote unquote walk around the space they live in. And that's kind of true because that corm we talked about, C-O-R-M, that core base of a banana plant

underground that keeps growing new stems from it. In a sense, like from an above the ground perspective, you will see the stem of that plant go from place to place to place to place because that one corm underground stays in one place and grows new stems. So if you see the internet say, hey, banana plants can walk around, that is what they're talking about. And it is like, it is like kind of sort of true. It's a wild way of describing a real thing about the plant. Anyway, that's yet another banana thing. What an amazing topic to cover. Thank you to Sean. Thank you to Joshua. Thank you to so many other patrons for putting it over the top and making it a show. And segueing off of that, also please

follow my guests. They also made this an episode. They're great. Lydia Bug and Teresa Lee have so many comedy writing podcasting things going on. It's going to be a very robust link section. Lydia Bug is a columnist for 1-900-HOT-DOG and has also written for Reductress and the Trailer Park Boys comics and lots of other stuff. Teresa Lee's stand-up album is called We're Still Doing This, and then her podcast is called You Can Tell Me Anything. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. Several books went into this show. I leaned on the New Oxford Book of Food Plants by J.G. Vaughan and C.A. Geisler. Also Banana, A Global History by Lorna Piatti-Farnell. What Have Plants Ever Done For Us? That's the title of the book by Stephen Harris.

And then a slew of internet sources, in particular National Geographic, really came through. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken, unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that?

Talk to you then. Go bananas.