Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World

Doomsday Vaults and Black Box bananas

The "Fort Knox of Food." From the International Herald Tribune.

The recent publicity about the opening of the "Global Seed Vault" in Longyearbyen, Norway, has prompted some questions about whether or not bananas are included. The vault is 500 meters deep, buried under a snow-capped mountain, and is filled with over a hundred million (!!!) different kinds seeds, all as a hedge against the predicted destruction to plant life global warming may be about to wreak. The project was described as a "backup hard drive" for agriculture by the New York Times (story). But bananas aren't included. Why?

Simple: bananas don't have seeds. And banana plantlets - the primary means of storing genetic material for the fruit - are an impossible fit for the Norwegian project, which can only store the so-called "orthodox" seeds - the kind that can be preserved dry. Storing bananas, as a recent press release from Bioversity International noted, need "human intervention. That's always been the story with bananas. We brought them from the forest thousands of years ago, and we've carried them around the world. They aren't just a product of human enterprise - they're a companion to humanity.

Liquid nitrogen keeps the banana materials at minus 320 degrees fahrenheit (-196 degrees c.)

So, is there a banana bank account out there, working as a hedge against disaster? Yes - it is called the "Black Box" collection, stored at the French Research Institute for Development, in Montpellier, France. The tissue samples there duplicate of those stored at the International Transit Center at the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium; that institution is one of the leading center for banana genetic research. "It's a mirror of the need for crop diversity itself," Emile Frison, Bioversity's Director General, said. "Just as humanity needs different varieties of crops, so different crops need different kinds of long-term storage."

That's good news for bananas, which face many present-day external attackers - diseases and pests especially virulent to the fruit, which suffers from declining genetic diversity - that are as destructive as the doomsday scenarios contemplated by the ice mountain project.

(This story is based on a press release from Bioversity. Read it in its entirety here - it includes the story of how the Black Box works, and why bananas require unique storage techniques.)

More great banana art from Gonzalo Fuenmayor

"Cuando las Miradas no Alcanzan," 47x47", oil on canvas, 2005

"Unaited gui Stand," 92 x 44 inches, oil on canvas, 2003*

Gonzalo is an artist from Colombia, site of some of the must brutal violence in the sad history of the Banana Republics. His grandfather worked for United Fruit (Chiquita), and tried - Gonzolo told me in an email - to paint a more sympathetic picture of the banana giant, which was responsible for the massacre of at least 1,000 banana workers during a strike in 1929 (the bloodshed was fictionalized by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in "100 Years of Solitude."

The conflict between differing versions of the story - and Gonzalo's own soul-searching about the relationship between the fruit, his own life, his culture, and his family give his work a high level of intensity (which is enhanced by the size of his canvases - some bigger than eight feet across.) I love these paintings. The feel both documentary and impressionistic, all at once.

Better Red than dead?

A Jamaican red banana plant, from Hirt's Gardens.

One possible alternative to the threatened yellow Cavendish banana is the so-called "red" banana - that's the color of the fruit's flesh - which is grown in Colombia, Ecuador, and in other parts of South and Central America. The "red" is sometimes considered a variant or cousin of the delicious Philippine Lacatan,

The Telegraph newspaper, in the U.K., now reports that some grocers have begun offering the differently-colored variety to consumers, and are having success with it. Describing the fruit as having a "raspberry flavor," and "creamy white pink flesh," the story goes on to say that consumers are responding well to the new offering. (I'm not too sure the "raspberry" descriptor is right. Red bananas, to me, are more apple-like.)

So far, only one UK supermarket chain is offering the fruit. A manager there said that he doubted that the red banana could replace the yellow one, that it was seen more as an attempt to add variety to the limited-to-one choice banana consumers have had for over a century.

The red banana isn't a Cavendish replacement technologically, either, since it grows slower, in fewer places, and ripens much faster than the hardier, blander, and more widespread yellow variety. But diversity is key to saving the banana, so adding a new color - or two (orange bananas grow in the South Pacific) is a great start.

Whole Foods markets in the U.S. often stock red bananas.

A giant wall of (almost) rotting bananas...

This comes from Oddity Central, via Terri Wahl (aka Auntie Em): New York artist Stefan Sagmeister has installed a panel of 7,200 bananas at the Deitch Projects gallery. This fruited megalith was put up on January 31 as part of the "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far" exhibit, which hinges around the idea of continuous transformation (the structure itself is in a state of rapid change - rather fetid at this point, since yellow cavendish bananas generally last about seven days before mushing up. The yellow brown barrier tumbles down next week.)

Links: Gallery - Artist - Show>

Bring fairness to the fruit

Harriet Lamb's new book, "Fighting the Banana Wars and Other Fairtrade Battles: How We Took on the Corporate Giants to Change the World", is out in the U.K. I'm awaiting a review copy, but an excerpt was printed on the NewConsumer magazine website. Fairtrade is a system that seeks to ensure that the folks who produce the foods we eat are well compensated for it; work in safe environments; and have an element of ownership over those products. Bananas were one of the first items Fairtrade advocates worked on in the early part of this decade, which makes sense, because bananas are highly visible at market, and banana workers have been particularly ill treated since the industry was founded in the 19th century.

U.S. consumers don't see much Fairtrade product - you'll find beans produced under that banner at Starbucks, but very little else,especially at your average chain grocery - and globally, bananas with the certification don't make much of a statistical dent in overall sales: less than one-tenth of one percent of the 13 million metric tons of the fruit produced every year for export are certified by Fairtrade Labeling Organization (it is also important to point out that Fairtrade bananas are not necessarily organic, and that farming conventional bananas - no matter who receives the profits - requires applications of often-toxic chemicals.)

But, as the book notes, Fairtrade's impact has also been symbolic, and the idea is spreading. One advocate put it this way:

"Don’t look only at sales volumes and market shares, look at the issues on the agenda, look at what the public are asking and what companies are debating. When we go into negotiating rooms with companies now, even if they’re not yet doing Fairtrade, they all have to do something on social and environmental issues."

What place does Fairtrade have in the global effort to save the banana? If one of the answers involves making more kinds of banana available to consumers - building a market in so-called "varietal" fruit, which would likely command a premium price - that could dovetail nicely with the economic development ideals of Fairtrade.

Learn more about Fairtrade.

Visitors to ex-banana castle are welcomed by goddess Venus with open no arms.

Converting former factories to art spaces isn't new - but turning an old banana processing facility into one is. This ex-industrial building, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once the home of D. Theodoredis & Sons Inc., a Chiquita subsidiary that distributed fruit to markets in the northeastern U.S. The old plant included ripening rooms - where temperature and atomosphere are controlled to keep fruit green as long as possible - and was a receiving point for fruit brought by trains from ports along the eastern seaboard.

The 63,000 square foot plant was repurposed in 1998 as the "Banana Factory," a community art center that includes galleries, classrooms, studios, and a theater (the "factory" part of the name is a misnomer, but it somehow feels appropriate; I wonder if locals called it that historically.)

I'm working on finding out how long the Theodoredis operation ran, when it was sold to Chiquita, and when it was shuttered. I'd like to hear from you if you know anything about the old banana operation, if you've visited the art center, and especially if you can make any before-and-after comparisons. Leave a comment or email me at the link on my "About" page.

Here's a link to the Banana Factory.

Will a weep-less onion lead to slip-less bananas?

You'd cry, too.

Researchers in New Zealand and Japan have engineered what they describe as a "tear-free" onion, according to a report from the AFP wire service. The happy onion was developed by the Crop and Food Research institute. The lead scientist on the project, Colin Eady, described how it was done:

"We previously thought the tearing agent was produced spontaneously by cutting onions, but [a Japanese research team] proved it was controlled by an enzyme," he told AFP from his home outside Christchurch. "Here in New Zealand we had the ability to insert DNA into onions, using gene-silencing technology developed by Australian scientists. The technology creates a sequence that switches off the tear-inducing gene in the onion so it doesn't produce the enzyme. So when you slice the vegetable, it doesn't produce tears."

(read the rest of the AFP article on Yahoo! news)

Genetic modification isn't all that scary if you really think about it. And though nothing may be more valuable than the ability to make tears cease to flow, for bananas - aside from developing one that's friendlier to pedestrians - the mission is more conventional: strengthen the fruit so that it will grow better, resist disease, and reduce the use of harmful chemicals that damage the environment and the health of plantation workers.

Another great banana blog

I just discovered the really cool "Yummy Banana" blog, which features banana pictures, recipes and philosophy (!!!) from around the world. My favorite entry? This image of a Cavendish banana with monkeys drawn on it.

By the way, in colonial Mexico - this was the time of the Spanish inquisition - prisoners often communicated with each other by hiding notes inside bananas.

Visit Yummy Banana. Or see the image at Flickr.

Dancing Bananas Department: An Assortment

The "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dancing banana has been an Internet meme since the late 1990s; I've posted it here after numerous requests. Enjoy the original version, and then two more recent tributes.

Banana Splits of the World

DAIRY QUEEN: "Delicious DQ soft serve covered in luscious strawberry, pineapple, and chocolate toppings, with whipped topping and nestled between a sweet banana." DQ's advantage is that it is ubiquitous; her highness has outposts in nearly every U.S. state, and internationally, too (I ate at one in Beijing.)The ice cream is special - no other soft-serve tastes like DQ - and that makes the split nearly perfect. Price: $3.00. Rating: four of five. Royal hint: go for the banana split blizzard instead - all the ingredients, mixed into a cup. Locations: Almost 6,000.



CARVEL'S "BANANA BARGE": No official description. But the picture speaks for itself. The best quality soft-serve in the bunch, but just two scoops/swirls. Unconventional name, unconventional presentation, but it works. Price: $6.00. OW! Stars: Five of five. Locations: 500 (recently opened several stores in Los Angeles.)



BASKIN-ROBBINS: "Delight in a traditional treat with your favorite ice cream flavors, two banana slices, crowned with chopped almonds, whipped cream and three cherries." About as close to the classic banana split as you can get. But traditional hard ice cream suffers in the age of Haagen-Dazs. Rating: two and a half of five. Price: about $5.00.



TASTEE-FREEZ: Claims to have invented soft-serve. I'm not so sure. But this is high-quality stuff - almost as creamy as Carvel. R ating: four of five. Price: $3.00 About 100 locations, with the most in California, Texas, and Illinois. One in Alaska.



FOSTER'S FREEZE: Weird, yucky, yellow ice milk. This California chain has passed its glory days, though you can find them in - and this is kind of yucky, too - hybridized "El Pollo Loco" stores. Plus, the picture is BOGUS: look at the glass dish. Price: $3.00 Rating: one of five. Locations: About 40.




CULVER'S: This midwestern chain features not ice cream, but creamier frozen custard (whole milk, egg yolks.) Don't forget to eat ten or so of the chain's "Butter Burgers," which taste exactly the way they sound: smooth as meat. Rating: SIX (!!!!) of five. Price: $4.00. Locations: 350.



SONIC DRIVE IN: Another middle-of-America chain. Best known for 1950s-style car hop service, the ice cream is pretty undistinguished (note that the regal sundae is positioned behind some DQ Blizzard-like treat in the picture.) Some stores sell deep-fried pickles. Rating: two of five (add two points if you're pregnant.) Prices: $3.00. Locations: 3,000.

More on monkeys and bananas

My friend Tim lived in Costa Rica for almost five years. He confirms not just that our simian relatives eat bananas, but also how they eat them:

"As I remember, they ate them upside down. Used their teeth to pull apart the peel. Bigger monkeys would bite chunks off or/and the smaller monkeys would break off chunks with both hands and sit and nibble or chomp away at the prized package in their hands. Actually it would be cool to get a small video of this on your site. Err...dont mean to tell you what ot do, I just remember it being real cute to watch."

Your wish is my command, amigo:

Tim, by the way, owns a really cool bike shop in Platteville, Wisconsin.

How Many Books, including mine, have the words "Changed the World" in their title?

963 in nonfiction, according to Amazon. ("Banana" is number nine.)