Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World

Not Everyone Thought the Gros Michel Banana Variety was Better...

Count Lasher: Jamaican recording star and banana lover, "lover" being the operative word. Image: MentoMusic.com

Background: The banana we eat today is a variety called the "Cavendish." But it isn't the breed your grandparents ate. That fruit was known as the "Gros Michel," and it was - by all reports - a bigger, hardier, and better tasting fruit than the one we now consume. But the Gros Michel was susceptible to a disease that wiped it out as a commercial crop by the 1960s. The Cavendish was only adopted because it resisted that disease. Today, a new form of the disease is back, and this time, the Cavendish is the banana getting sick. There's no cure in sight. But did everyone prefer the taste of the Gros Michel? Apparently not...

There are tons of banana songs - the Chiquita jingle and Day-O (actually called "The Banana Boat Song") are among the best known - but my current favorite has to be "Robusta Banana," a song recorded in the 1950s by a Jamaican singer named Count Lasher. Here's just one verse of the song, which mentions several banana breeds:

"Gros Michelle" she said, "is not too bad" - People like it when it is cooked with shad - But I don't eat shad. I eat fresh fish - So I've got to have Robusta in my dish"

I was made aware of the tune by Mike Garnice, an expert on Jamaican Mento, a musical precursor tp the ska and reggae most of us are familiar with. Mike read my book, and became a banana enthusiast: "I am now the foremost banana expert where I work, and always have an eye out for non-Cavendish varieties. I'm writing you to make you aware of a c.1956 Jamaican song about bananas. It's by Count Lasher, Jamaica’s greatest mento star. I think you’ll get a kick out of the lyrics. My next trip to Jamaica will have to include a Robusta!"

Image: MentoMusic.com

I had to let Mike know that Robusta is a form of Cavendish, and the reason it probably was preferred was because it was fresh! As noted in my recent post about Coquimba, the banana company that's trying to bring just-from-the-tree Cavendish to local markets in the U.S., a fresher banana tastes far better than one that's been shipped and stored and refrigerated and gassed (in order to delay ripening) on the way to supermarkets, as the bananas we buy are.

Jamaica was where the very first supermarket bananas (of the Gros Michel variety) imported to the U.S. originated, back in 1879 - they were imported to New Jersey by a sea captain named Lorenzo Dow Baker. He went into partnership with a New England entrepreneur named Andrew Preston, and the company they founded - Boston Fruit - is known today as Chiquita.

Mike sent me a link to his website, which is all about Mento, and includes the very suggestive Lasher lyrics, which mention several banana types. There's also a clip from the song.

Thanks, Mike!

Banana Juice Research in India is conducted by Nuclear Energy Experts

Atomic banana juice from India

This is really more than you'll ever want to know about extracting juice from bananas, but it is interesting, because the folks at India's Bhaba Atomic Research Centre have figured out ways to squeeze a lot more juice from the fruit than previously was thought to be possible. I don't know why the nuclear scientists are spending time doing this, though my (absolutely uninformed) guess is that atomic research involves advanced centrifuges, and so do the juice extraction techniques described on the linked pages. A second guess might be more political: India's atomic energy program is a huge source of national pride and strategic military importance. Bananas are also a source of national pride - and are of huge importance to the national diet. Maybe it isn't so silly that top minds and resources would be devoted to working on both in a single facility?

Or maybe these guys just have a lot of time on their hands and got thirsty.

A Visit to the New Home of the International Banana Museum

Top Banana Glen Speer

A humble exterior, four miles south of Interstate 15.

I finally got a chance to visit the new home of the International Banana Museum (previous posts here and here) earlier this month. It was awesome! I just missed Ken Banister - the museum's founder, who moved his banana collection from the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena to the high desert town of Hesperia, California, about a year ago, but I found myself in the able hands of Glen Speer, whose business card lists him this way:

GLEN SPEER

Genuine Antique Christian Person

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, CAN"T REMEMBER

Free Advice!

Top Banana - Banana Museum

Hesperia, CA

His credentials turned out to be impeccable and true. Glen graciously showed me around, recommended that I have lunch at the omelette place across the street - over 100 types of egg-based dishes - and encouraged me to take lots of pictures, which I did. As I was leaving, another local told me to quit with the snapshots: "You'll make his head even bigger!" But from the looks of things, Glen has a lot to be proud of.

More on the museum, including additional pictures, after the jump.

Couldn't agree more...

Farmers Market, 3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles, May 5, 2008

LA Times on Banana Museum

Best banana picture ever - from the banana museum's website

Fake memoirist, real novelist, and - best of all - Oprah nemesis James Frey mentions Altadena banana museum; Los Angeles Times uses "banana expert" (me) to confirm that it exists (or existed; it has since moved to Hesperia, in the California high desert.)

About the picture: The proprietor of the museum, Ken Banister, has his shirt open at the belly. He is standing above a "banana club" logo, and next to a pile of bananas. A man who has burst into flames runs in front of them. To Ken's left a child on an adult's shoulders seems to stare in amazement. To the right, two adults laugh. The man closer to Banister seems to be applauding. All the way on the left side of the picture, a man in a pork pie hat and red knee socks, sitting and only half in frame, appears to be indifferent to the spectacle.

What in heck is going on here?

Adios, bananero...

When I visited Honduras, one of the most interesting people I met was Gene Osmark, a former Chiquita researcher who regaled me with stories of both the good - and bad - old days of banana company dominance in Latin America. Gene wasn't one to pull a punch, and my conversations with him were honest, fascinating, and sometimes shocking. I received word that Gene passed away last week; he was, as Ivan Buddenhagen - another renowned banana researcher - remarked, "one of the last of the old guard."

Comment: it is, perhaps, too easy to see that old guard as simply part of a system of exploitation and misery. It is more complicated than that. As a corporate entity, United Fruit - Chiquita - did great damage. It wouldn't be a stretch to call it evil. But many of the scientists who worked for the company tried hard to improve the land they grew bananas on and the lives of the people they lived amidst. This is especially true of the post-1950s era banana researchers, who acutely understood the history that they were a part of.

There are fewer and fewer of these original banana folk left. Anyone interested in the history of the banana industry in Latin America would do well to spend time getting information from a primary source. I recommend you check out "Banana People," a collection of first-hand accounts of life working for Chiquita, assembled by Clyde Stephens, a former bananero now living in Florida.

Here's a description of the book:

"This book is a collection of short stories by BANANA PEOPLE who lived in the Tropics and savored a unique period that is now past history. Fifteen writers relate their favorite adventures, anecdotes, history, intrigues of the banana business and exciting plantation lifestyles of a bygone era. Contributors had a wide range of tropical experiences and include a former president of the United Fruit Company, vice presidents, engineers, a medical doctor, research scientists, accountants, pilots, professors and others."

You can order it for $20, plus shipping, here.

What does Keira Knightley have to do with our endangered banana?

She's shooting a movie called "The Duchess," where she plays Lady Cavendish, the 18th Century Duchess of Devonshire. Here's the description of the movie from AceShowbiz:

"Duchess chronicles the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, an ancestor of Princess Diana who was alternately celebrated and reviled for her extravagant political and personal lives. Accompanying Knightley in the cast are Ralph Fiennes as William Cavendish, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, and Dominic Cooper as Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey."

In my book, I explain that our banana - the endangered one - is called the Cavendish. It is named after the Duchess's son, the third William Cavendish, and the sixth duke. This Cavendish - who never married, and was known as "the bachelor duke" - spent his time building up the family estate's gardens and greenhouses. Around 1830, he received a sample banana plant that had been brought to England from the South Pacific. The Cavendish banana's stock eventually was brought to the Caribbean, where it became the "mother plant" for most of the fruit we eat today.

Monkeys+Bananas=Moola?

California's latest racket lottery game is "Go Bananas," a scratch-off contest that claims odds of about one winner per every five tickets (at a buck each.) That includes tickets that win you other tickets. The chance of getting real cash are twelve to one. In the interest of public service, I've purchased five tickets, labelled them, and will scratch one out every day for the coming week. If you're really bored, check back in tomorrow to see what I won (half of everything I win will go to Bioversity International, the banana conservation organization.)

THE WAY THE TICKET WORKS: You scratch off six boxes. If three match you win. There's a bonus "quick $10 spot" box that - if the number ten is revealed - nets you that amount of money.

MONDAY I LOST. Got a pair of $6.00 scratches, and one $500. Tease. TUESDAY I LOST. Got a pair of $150s. WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, LOST LOST LOST! Lesson: you can't save bananas with lottery tickets.

Here's a stupid page from the California lottery that lists the entire array of theft devices they offer.

The point of all this, besides making me richer than the book ever could, is to point out - once again - that the origin of the term "go bananas" is not necessarily known. See here.

Amazing Chiquita banana cartoon from the 1940s

Images from the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Read the full post for direct links and downloadable (!!!) cartoons.

In the 1940s, as disease ravaged banana plantations in Latin America, the major banana companies implemented strategies to convince consumers to buy their particular brand of fruit. The Chiquita banana campaign was, and is, one of the most successful in marketing history. The singing, dancing, sexy fruit was based on the real-screen cinema exploits of Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda, who'd famously cavorted with man-sized bananas in the 1942 Busby Berkeley musical, “The Gang’s All Here.”

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.

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>

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.

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.

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.

Do Monkeys Eat Bananas?

At my recent reading at Warwick's bookstore, I was asked why monkeys peel bananas "upside-down." My flippant answer was that I don't answer "monkey questions," but the truth is that I just didn't know. However, Slate, the online magazine that usually writes about important things, answered the question in 2002. "Monkeys are the real experts" in peeling bananas, writes Steven E. Landsberg during a discussion of whether bananas are better eaten - by humans - from the bottom up. (I vote against. He's non-committal; Landsberg also claims to know a guy who "scoops out the seeds" before eating a banana. Since bananas are seedless, this is a miracle, and whoever this fellow is, he needs to talk to banana breeders immediately.)

Some other general monkey/banana questions:

Q: Do monkeys eat bananas?
A: Yes.
Q: Do they peel the bananas prior to eating.
A: Yes - see above.
Q: Why do monkeys eat bananas?
A: Because they're delicious and available - same reason we do. Plus, monkeys are hungry l'il rascals, aren't they?
Q: Are gorillas litterbugs?
A: See first picture.
BONUS QUESTION: Do gorillas get bananas from trees, or vending machines?
A: See the bottom of this post.

(BTW, The monkey is Magilla Gorilla, one of Hannah-Barbera's 1960s stable of challenged anthropomorphic Saturday morning fun-time pals. See more of this huggable, luvable simian after the jump.)

Brazil - world's tastiest bananas?

There was recently some debate on a blog over whether the loss of the endangered Cavendish might not be such a big problem; a poster from Brazil pointed out that there are many unique bananas available in that country.

True enough, though all have problems that most likely make them poor candidates for global Cavendish replacement. Nevertheless, if you get to Brazil, you should try them. Here - again, inspired by the Brazilian blog poster - are three of the "Fabulous Five."

Nanica: This is a banana that stays a bit green, even when ripe. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good-tasting banana. The Brazilian Fruit website describes it as "sweet, tender and pleasantly aromatic."

Prata: The Prata is a less-sweet banana that grows very well and resists lots of diseases. It is a bit sour, which makes it a less-than-great Corn Flake candidate - but a great potential superstar in a market that might diversify to include varietal bananas (just as we've seen the number of apple types available in stores explode from the days when we simply got red delicious and granny smith fruit.)
Here's a recipe for the savory Prata banana pastry pictured above, from the "Taste of Brazil" Web site.

Maça: The Maça is known as an "apple banana," because it has a taste and texture similar to that fruit. They're yummy, though a bit of an acquired taste for Americans used to their sweet (and somewhat bland) Cavendish variety. A Brazilian breeder told me that he had "high hopes" that apple bananas might become a global staple - but added: "As long as the sweeter bananas exist, there's little incentive for banana companies to make that happen."

"Mom on Wet Banana"

Despite the title - which is a direct quote - this video is both amusing, nostalgic (for those familiar with the Wham-O "Slip-N-Slide") and safe for work. (I'm posting it as a memorial to Richard Knerr, co-founder of the company that invented the Wet Banana, as well as the Hula Hoop, Hoppity-Hop, and Frisbee, who passed away last week.)

Two Fabulous Banana Products

There are a dozen major diseases that affect the banana - most virulent, many incurable (the rest often require enough pesticides to turn you into a lobster.) But how to you recognize these maladies? The American Phytopathological Society (APS) has the answer: a CD-ROM called "Diseases of Tropical Fruits, Citrus, and Sugarcane."

That's right - you'll not only get pictures of the stuff that ails bananas, but you'll also feast your eyes on over 550 photographs of angry fungi, bacteria, viruses, worms, and beetles, on the march against avocado, banana, coconut, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mandarine, mango, orange, papaya, and sugarcane. A bargain at $59.00.

If - for some insane reason - an electronic photo album of plant sicknesses isn't up your alley, the "Banana Bunker" from Cultured Containers might be nice: this is a curved, protective plastic container for your fruit. I've already reviewed one of these - the "Banana Guard" - and though I normally attempt to refrain from commentary that might discomfort, to quote Bob Chipeska, those with "tender sensibility," this has to be said: the thing looks like it belongs hidden under your bed (though I like the accordion center, which presumably stretches to fit any size fruit.) The inventor, Paul Stremple, points out that the product not only keeps your banana safe and unblemished, but also safeguards the contents of your backpack or briefcase from the banana. Price: $4.99.

If only Stremple's masterpiece could extend its protective shield to the sick bananas on the CD-ROM.

Order the CD-ROM. Order the banana protector, or, if you happen to be in New England, buy one - no foolin' - at the gift shop of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art.

I have been asked...

Whether or not I will wear a banana costume to readings (next: Vroman's Bookstore Pasadena, CA, January 10).

The answer is probably not. But if you wear one, I'll give you a free book. Here's a link to over 60 different yellow fruit suits to choose from.

The mystery of "going bananas."

Everybody knows what "going bananas" means: you've just turned plain cuckoo. But what are the origins of the phrase? Strangely, even the most authoritative source on Anglo etymology, The Oxford English Dictionary, isn't sure. The first known usage of the term has been credited to a 1968 academic publication, which noted that Kentucky college students were saying it.

It seems difficult to believe that such a common phrase could be less than four decades old. But there's some sense to the notion: it was during the late 1960s that rumors spread across university campuses that roasted banana peels had psychedelic properties, and that ingesting them could lead to hallucinations similar to ones brought on by LSD or psilocybin ("magic") mushrooms. (It isn't true, folks.) The reference to students in the OED entry - at least to me - gives weight to the argument that the phrase may only date back to the era of freak-outs, flower children, and free love.

Oxford suspects that the term is older.

The Belgians are masters of the fruit

There are a lot of things Belgians know about bananas: the scientist Edmond De Langhe is probably the greatest living banana explorer. He's spent much of his life traveling the world, looking for new species of the fruit. His specimens are stored at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; over 1,000 different banana types are kept there. The collection acts as both a way of preserving the fruit's biodiversity in a rapidly-overdeveloping world, and as the raw material for future banana breeding. One of the Leuven bananas might hold the key to building a more disease-resistant version of the fruit. Much of the work in the attempt to find that grail banana is being overseen by Rony Swennen, a De Langhe protege and advocate (as I am) of the use of genetic modification to broaden the fruit's experimental possibilities.

...more after the jump, including a correction...

Give bananas for the holidays...

Banana trees are pretty easy to cultivate, but getting them to yield fruit is unlikely unless you're in the tropics - or own a large greenhouse. But with luck, you can get some nice leaves and use them to wrap sticky rice (recipes). The banana growing kit above is s $12.98 and comes complete with a plastic monkey.

...even more presents after the jump...

"Ugandan Idol" finalist to pick up banana peels

Uganda is the world's most banana-eating nation. Many people there rely on the fruit for eighty percent of their caloric needs. The average Ugandan eats about 500 pounds of the fruit per year, and in some villages, consumption is double that (by comparison, the average U.S. citizen eats 25 pounds of bananas annually.)

One problem with so many bananas: what to do with the peels? Allowing them to rot away is both unsanitary and a logistical nightmare, considering the vast quantities of banana skins Ugandans discard.

A contestant on a game show airing on the nation's NTV network had a better idea: use the peels as a source of renewable energy. The proposal came on a television series called "Show Me The Money," where young Ugandans present their ideas for environmentally-sustainable entrepreneurial projects to a panel of three judges. The program - like "American Idol," but without the strangely magnetic idiocy of contestants singing "Over the Rainbow" to Paula Abdul - whittles the competitors down to a group of finalists. The banana proposal has made it to the top 15. Next week, it will face off against proposals to build an architectural model shop in Kampala, and another that would deliver anti-malarial drugs in the form of herbal teas.

The show will air three times weekly until December 5, when a winner will be declared and awarded a prize of 50,000,000 Ugandan shillings, or about USD $30,000. Runners-up will receive 15,000,000 shillings each.

The network continues to air "Malcolm in the Middle."

Image: village bananas, from the "I've left Copenhagen for Uganda" blog.

Picture of the day...

...from the wonderfully restored Popeye DVD box (this is from disc two, "Wild Elephinks.") Bananas, in 1933, when the cartoon was made, cost a nickel apiece - less than half the price of apples.

(click for full-size image)

Buy the complete Popeye remastered set at Amazon or iTunes

The fix must have been in at the Texas State Fair!

see original image at flickr.

Every October, culinary masters compete at the Texas State Fair for the "Big Tex" prize - an award for the most fabulous, new recipe for a fried dessert. Though this year's winner - fried cookie dough - sounds lovely, I was bummed to hear that a recipe for Fried Banana Pudding failed to place, especially considering the heart-wrenching tale behind it, according to the Dallas Morning News:

"Although food vendor Debbie Hays and her family were among the vendors who weren't awarded a Big Tex trophy, they said they are still walking tall.

B.W.'s Original Fried Banana Pudding was the invention of Ms. Hays' brother, longtime concessionaire B.W. Morrow, who died of a heart attack earlier this year. His recipe was picked to be in the contest posthumously.

His wife and daughter came to the contest to see how everyone would respond to Mr. Morrow's last fair food contribution, banana pudding wrapped in a tortilla and fried.

The judges said it was deliciously comforting.

"He had worked on creating this for this year's fair," said Mr. Morrow's wife, Judy. "This is a real honor for us to be in the contest. He'd be proud."

Rest in peace, B.W. You've earned your place in the pantheon of the greats.

(click for full-size image)

I learned about Amy Crehore in a listing at BoingBong. Her stuff is stunning and mysterious, especially her "Monkey Love" series, which includes this oil.

Her work will be on exhibit in Santa Monica at the Robert Berman Gallery (Bergamot Station) starting Saturday, November 17.

Yes, a bit of stretch to relate to the book. But so lovely...

Los Angeles museum gets to keep paintings that accidentally put apples - instead of bananas - in Eden.

The painter got it wrong; the forbidden fruit was a banana. Photos from the Norton Simon Museum.

One of the major misconceptions in theological history is that the apple was the fruit Eve gave Adam, and which subsequently got the couple ejected from Eden. In all likelihood, the placement of the apple is the result of a misinterpretation of scripture by renaissance painters, who took the greek word for apple - "malum" - as a similar-sounding word for "evil" (as in the knowledge of good and evil; that word is the root of our "malice".)

I discuss the linguistic evidence for the banana's true role in Eden in the first chapter of my book; the argument was originally put forth by biblical scholar Schneir Levin in the Winter/Spring 2004 edition of Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought (read it here.)

Now, the Los Angeles Times says that a dispute over the ownership of one of those paintings has been settled...

The Last Bananero

The Bananeros - or "Banana Men" - were the gringos who tamed the Central American jungle and established the banana industry that we know today. They were railroad builders and cowboys, botanists and explorers. In my book, I explain the more-than-problematic history of the bananero culture, and how it led to a century of misery and bloodshed. Here's a first-hand account by one of the few surviving bananeros I met during a visit to Honduras...

THE NIGHT AFTER I VISITED FHIA, THE EXPERIMENTAL BANANA FARM IN HONDURAS, Juan Fernando Aguilar and his wife picked me up in their battered pickup truck; we drove past a few roadside markets – huge bunches of plantain hung, old style, in open-front, tin and plywood shacks – to meet one of the last “United Fruit” men living in Honduras; "George" (I've changed his name) was burly and cheerful, and I instantly recognized a New York accent, surprising him, because he hadn’t been to the city in 50 years. We sat on the patio of tiny restaurant outside of San Pedro Sula, the city closest to Chiquita’s old La Lima compound. We ate fried fish and salad with shredded cabbage and tomatoes, washed down with bottles of the local Salva Vida – “Lifesaver” – beer. I found myself alternately charmed and horrified as he described his four decades working for the big banana company. The tale wasn’t terribly heavy with political awareness. It felt more like I was listening to a nostalgic boy, spinning tales of the Wild West.
“United Fruit came to this country,” he told me, “and brought money and jobs – and all we took out were bananas.”

Banana Museum Saved!

This is a chapter that never made it to the book, about a banana museum in Los Angeles that was about to close. But real life can provide happy endings, even when one never seemed possible...

SOMETIMES, as I worked on this project, I’d find something I’d missed - something obvious - and ended up amazed at the oversight, yet delighted at the discovery. The battle over the banana split was one of those things. Another was the existence of a banana greenhouse two hours south of me, in San Diego. On some afternoons, during the three years I spent researching and writing this book, I’d simply type the word “banana” - with some random modifier, like “folk tales,” or “Florida,” and comb through the results.
A few months before I finished the first draft of my manuscript, I typed in “banana museum.” One sentence stood out amidst the few lines of summary:

“THE BANANA MUSEUM IS FOR SALE.”