Bikes and bananas, captured together in this $9.95 t-shirt I saw at a Jamba Juice in NYC. (I know, WEAK post. I’m on vacation.)
July, 2008
29
Jul 08
Market Advertises Banana Type as 'Cavendish'
I took this pic with my mobile July 24 at the Whole Foods on Houston St. in lower Manhattan. I’ve never seen a U.S. retailer get so specific.
24
Jul 08
Report: First Field Test of Genetically Modified Cavendish
Australian banana researcher James Dale. Image: QUT
Cavendish is our supermarket banana – the one that’s under threat from the newly-remerged Panama Disease (see here for more info.) The Cavendish banana is absolutely seedless and sterile, so it cannot be bred conventionally; the only sway to ensure its future as a commercial fruit would be through genetic engineering (the alternative would be to allow the Cavendish to die out and replace it with a different – and as yet unidentified – banana variety.) Now, according to a news report from the Australia Broadcasting Company, a project spearheaded by Australian scientist James Dale, who runs the Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, has begun the field test of such fruit – the first time lab-modified Cavendish have ever been put to large-scale outdoor trial. The test, the story says, will be “to improve the nutrient content and disease resistance of Cavendish bananas.”
Australia is in desperate banana straits right now, having lost much of its crop to poor weather and a subsequent Panama Disease attack. The field tests are partially being funded by a grant from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. (Dale, by the way, prefers to use the term “biofortification” to describe genetically engineered fruit – one of a long list of proposed terms for such processes, including “genetically modified,” “transgenic,” “GM,” “GMO,” and others. The desire to come up with a less-scary name for lab-developed foods is understandable, but misguided. The real problem is that people have been misled into thinking that all genetic modification of foods is terrifying. The responsibility for this comes partially from big agricultural companies who have behaved terribly when they have introduced modified products – but also from consumer groups who oppose all forms of genetic modification while failing to understand even the basics of the science behind it. )
Comment: The Australia trials will likely horrify some folks – possibly because earlier tests of genetic bananas weren’t focused on supermarket fruit, and this brings the prospect of a so-called “Frankenbanana” closer to home. But genetic engineering isn’t an absolutely scary prospect, and this kind of work is needed with bananas, both because they’re a vital subsistence food, and because they’re such a weak organism. And the Cavendish is a very safe banana to experiment on: with no seeds or pollen, there is zero – absolutely zero – chance of it the kind of cross-crop contamination occurring that we’ve seen with engineered corn. Bananas need a lot of help to survive – and the lab is one of the places that help is going to come from. Not that the Down Under effort is entirely altruistic, I’m sure: if a Panama Disease-resistant banana can be built by Dale and his team, they’ll also have built a gold mine.
16
Jul 08
This is Real: Banana-Smuggling Ring Smashed
Chiquita-owned banana boat, c. 1932
Newsweek’s July 12th issue reported that a boatload of Ecuadorian fruit intercepted by Italian authorities two years ago was part of a larger smuggling ring that realized money was to be made in black-market fruit on the continent, and not – as was originally thought – a one-off incident (perhaps a botched cocaine smuggling operation, where somebody forgot to stuff the fruit full of the drug.) An investigation completed this week reported on the business:
“The trade is big enough now that the Italian authorities are becoming concerned about lost revenue. When officials completed a two-year probe into illicit fruit smuggling this week, they found the trade represented losses of more $80 million in customs fees and more than $2 million in unpaid sales tax on bananas alone.”
The reason? Bananas are highly taxed in Europe, the result of trade laws that favor fruit grown in former colonies, mostly in Africa and the Caribbean. So fruit from Ecuador – the world’s largest banana exporter – comes under restrictive levies. U.S. based-banana companies have been fighting over the taxes for years, but the issue rages on. Chiquita recently adopted an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” strategy by announcing it would open new plantations in Africa.
For consumers, the smuggled bananas turned out to be a good deal. investigators helped uncover the extent of the plot by visiting grocers and noticing extraordinarily low prices for the fruit. “We kept wondering how they [the markets] can be selling these Ecuadorean bananas so cheap,” one said. No longer, he added: “That certainly won’t be the case now.”
More on banana trade wars here.
More on Chiquita in Africa here.
14
Jul 08
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!
10
Jul 08
Mark Cavendish, Bananas, and the Tour de France
Is this cyclist named after the famous banana? (Photo from the Telegraph UK)
British cyclist Mark Cavendish won the fifth stage of the Tour de France. I’ve gotten several notes (including one from my dad) wondering whether he’s related to the Cavendish family from whose name the world’s most popular banana variety was derived. I’ve checked around, and the answer is that I don’t know. If you do, post a comment below.
In the meantime:
Here’s an article in Bicycling magazine that explains why the banana is “cycling’s perfect food.”
Here’s a previous entry on the Cavendish family connection to bananas.
Here’s a link to an outdated book I wrote about the Tour de France.
Cavendish’s personal website is here; his Wikipedia entry is here.
8
Jul 08
Troubling Times for Supermarket Bananas
This sign was spotted at the QFC market in the Wallingford area of Seattle, on 45th St. Reader Mac reports that there were also some “gross” looking red bananas present.
7
Jul 08
Varietal Banana Coming to U.S. markets?
For 100 years, the big banana growers have said it couldn’t be done: bring a better-tasting, non-commodity version of the fruit to the American shopper. The reasons? Bananas have to be cheap; they need to be grown in massive quantities; they need to be shipped and processed in ways that require least-common-denominator techniques that lead to a product that’s good – but nowhere near as tasty as some local varieties or even a standard fruit (the breed we eat is called a Cavendish) eaten locally.
I recently spoke to a fruit importer named Jose Ubilla who hopes to change that. His family runs a small Nicaraguan banana plantation, and began importing fruit under the Coquimba brand name in mid-June (the fruit is being marketed as “The Gourmet Banana.”) Though the fruit is of the same Cavendish variety that you’ll find in supermarkets everywhere, Ubilla says that the fruit he’s selling are bigger, better tasting, and will arrive at markets in better condition that standard supermarket fruit than the Chiquita, Dole, and Bonita bananas you’re used to seeing. The reason? Shorter shipping times and better handling: the fruit is babied on the tree, with each bunch picked at its individual point of readiness, and then shipped in carefully monitored containers: “You can’t do it this way if you’re handling large quantities of fruit,” says Ubilla.
The fruit is currently being sold at a few farmers markets in Florida, so – being in Los Angeles – I haven’t had a chance to sample it. But Ubilla is working with a California distributor, as well, and promises me a taste – so stay tuned; I’ll be updating with an on-the-spot report.
Comment: there’s no doubt that a fresh Cavendish is better tasting (and has a less mushy texture) than a less fresh one, and shipping in small quantities with more care makes all the difference. I can’t tell you how many letters I get asking how it is possible that the bananas folks have eaten in Central America can be the same variety as the one they get in supermarkets here. If the Coquimba fruit performs as promised, it should be closer to that straight-from-the-plantation experience.
The challenge Coquimba faces is marketing. Consumers are used to treating bananas as a commodity. Are they going to be willing to pay more for a banana that might not look all that different than the ones they’re used to? I love Ubilla’s idea of selling at farmers markets – a place bananas have usually been absent from.
But here’s what I’d really love to see: Coquimba to succeed so much that it goes one step beyond Cavendish – and gets into different banana varieties entirely. With hundreds of delicious non-Cavendish banana types out there, why not approach the fruit the way apple producers did a decade ago when they introduced today’s plethora of varieties to a market that featured only the bland red delicious and granny smith? Check out these articles (here and here) on the bananas of India. If only we could get a few of those into our stores!
Would you be willing to pay a little more for a fresher-from-the-tree, better-tasting banana? Add your comment below.
3
Jul 08
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.
