0:06

We have no bananas. That's

0:11

Louis Prima singing the novelty

0:13

song Yes we have No Bananas

0:15

in nine. The

0:18

song was actually written in a

0:22

century ago and was so popular

0:24

a million copies of its sheet music

0:27

sold in a matter of months. As

0:30

Variety wrote, its success

0:32

is unexplainable, although the

0:34

title as a catch line may be a cause

0:37

we have no bananas

0:39

today. That

0:42

title came from a phrase supposedly

0:45

uttered by a Greek grocer at a

0:47

Long Island fruit stand. Some

0:49

believe the song was inspired by an

0:51

actual banana shortage. Regardless,

0:54

the song was such a craze that

0:56

demand for the fruit skyrocketed,

0:59

causing a well runs on bananas

1:02

and now. It might surprise you that the

1:04

banana that everyone was going eight four

1:06

at the time was not the banana

1:08

you find at your local grocery store today.

1:11

This was an entirely different variety

1:14

of banana, one that dominated

1:16

the US market for decades in

1:18

the late nineteenth and first half of

1:21

the twentieth centuries. Its

1:23

name the grow Michell

1:26

French for big Mike. For

1:29

many, this was the only banana they

1:31

would ever know, and it was delicious,

1:35

has a nicer taste and more banana eat taste.

1:38

It is better than the banana we eat now.

1:40

When the grow Michelle had to be replaced,

1:43

banana companies weren't sure the new

1:45

banana, the one we eat today,

1:47

which is known as the Caven dish, would

1:50

even be accepted. When the switch

1:52

had to happen, they were like, no housewife

1:54

is going to buy these because they just don't taste

1:57

as good. So what happened to

1:59

this loved banana We'll

2:01

explain, and along the way take

2:04

a look back at some other forgotten

2:06

foods, and I'll chat with

2:08

Broadway legend Andre de Shields

2:10

about his special banana memories.

2:13

And that's what you want for it to be. You

2:15

wanted to change your

2:18

default consciousness. Otherwise

2:20

why eat it? And yes there

2:22

will be singing. We've

2:24

strink beans and onions

2:27

and big juicy lemon and

2:29

all sorts of fruit, and

2:32

say from

2:34

CBS Sunday morning, and I heart

2:37

I'm Morocca. And this is

2:40

mobituaries, this

2:44

moment, the groomy shell

2:48

death of a banana.

3:05

Ah, the sound of mourning. Actually

3:11

it's this sound that means morning to

3:13

me, The dulcet tones of

3:15

frozen bananas getting ground up.

3:18

That's pretty much the only way I consume bananas

3:21

these days in a blender with some other

3:23

ingredients. To me, a banana

3:25

is simply a potassium delivery system,

3:28

too boring to eat on its own, which

3:31

is why I was fascinated to learn that

3:33

this wasn't always the case. That

3:35

my grandparents enjoyed much better

3:37

bananas. So how did

3:40

we get here to these blah banas.

3:43

I never intended to be sort of the world

3:45

expert on any particular topic,

3:47

let alone bananas, but I have come

3:50

to um not just accepted, but

3:52

embrace it. That's Dan Capell,

3:55

the author of Banana, The Fate

3:57

of the Fruit that Changed the World. He's

4:00

researched and traveled the world, learning

4:02

everything there is to know about bananas.

4:05

Bananas were the very first cultivated

4:08

fruit, and so we're talking ten

4:10

thousand or more years that bananas

4:13

have been part of the human diet

4:15

and the human story. Actually, but

4:18

in terms of bananas being available

4:20

to people who don't live in places

4:23

where bananas can grow, um,

4:25

that's less than a hundred fifty years.

4:28

The earliest bananas grew in the wild

4:30

in Southeast Asia and then spread

4:32

to other parts of the world. Spanish

4:34

and Portuguese explorers and missionaries

4:37

brought bananas to the New World in the fifteen

4:39

hundreds, where the fruit would flourish

4:42

in the Caribbean and Central America.

4:46

The banana made its splashy US

4:48

debut at the Centennial Exhibition

4:51

in Philadelphia in eighteen seventy six.

4:53

The event marking the hundredth anniversary

4:56

of the Declaration of Independence introduced

4:58

it's nearly ten mill the visitors to

5:01

all sorts of innovations. Heinz

5:03

Ketchup, a steam powered monorail,

5:06

a suitcase that turned into a bathtub really,

5:09

and Alexander Graham Bell's invention

5:11

of a little something called the telephone,

5:13

which is funny because as a child, I'm sure I

5:16

tried to talk into a banana.

5:18

But the banana plant in the exhibitions

5:20

Horticultural Hall was reportedly

5:23

such a sensation that a guard

5:25

had to be put on lookout to prevent visitors

5:27

from trying to grab a souvenir. Had

5:30

people seen pictures of it before or

5:32

did it just come as this surprise, this thing

5:34

from almost like outer space. I

5:37

think that exhibition probably

5:41

made the banana more real to people. These

5:43

exhibitions captured people's imaginations

5:46

especially the imaginations of some entrepreneurs

5:48

who then started looking at ways

5:50

to bring bananas to the US. Those

5:53

entrepreneurs began scouting tropical

5:55

regions where bananas flourished, and

5:58

while there were a number of rieties to

6:00

choose from, sellers seized

6:02

on the gromy shell banana,

6:05

first grown on the Caribbean island

6:07

of Martinique in the eighteen thirties. That

6:09

in Jamaica, the groomy shell had

6:12

spread throughout the Caribbean and Central

6:14

America, and it became top

6:16

banana in the US largely

6:18

for one reason. The most important

6:21

thing is that it's going to survive shipping. If dozens

6:23

of us shipping, nothing else matters. And the

6:25

grower shell survives shipping better

6:27

than any other banana because of its tough skin and

6:30

and it's slow ripening characteristics.

6:32

And so that was the one that they were going

6:34

to make their money on. Another benefit,

6:37

every banana in the bunch or finger

6:39

in the hand, if we're using proper terminology

6:42

here, was exactly the same.

6:46

Okay, quick banana biology lesson.

6:48

You've probably noticed that the bananas

6:50

you eat don't have seeds, those

6:53

little black circles you might see. Our vestigial

6:55

seeds remnants of an early species

6:58

of banana. No seeds means

7:00

bananas reproduce by a transplanting

7:03

a piece of one plant, known as a sucker,

7:05

to start growing another. They're basically

7:08

clones. This means that most

7:10

every banana we eat is genetically

7:12

identical, tasting exactly

7:15

the same, but also equally vulnerable.

7:18

With every major company growing and

7:20

selling the groomy shell and only

7:22

the grow michell, the banana industry

7:25

established what's called a monoculture,

7:28

growing only one variety of a single

7:30

crop. It would prove to be a dangerous

7:33

gambit. After settling

7:35

on the growny shell, the entrepreneurs

7:37

needed to figure out how to bring these bananas

7:40

in mass quantities to the United

7:42

States. One of the first major

7:44

companies to figure this out was the United

7:47

Fruit, which would later become Chiquita. The

7:49

company devised and innovative solution

7:52

refrigerated shipping. This

7:55

is not in the days of ubiquitous refrigeration.

7:58

These banana ships had ice

8:00

in them, tons and tons of ice that

8:02

were put in these colds, and there were these elaborate

8:05

ventilation systems into the cargo holes that would

8:07

direct the cold towards them. The ships

8:09

were painted white to keep them cool. Those

8:12

refrigerated ships, each of which

8:14

could carry up to a half million

8:16

bananas, would become known as

8:18

the Great White Fleet, eventually

8:21

the largest private navy in

8:23

the world. But

8:26

there were still a few hurdles for the banana

8:28

business, namely getting consumers

8:31

to accept the product. For

8:33

many of the prim and proper women of

8:35

the Victorian era, eating a banana

8:37

was simply too risque given

8:40

the fruits suggestive shape. Many

8:42

chose to slice or cut up their bananas

8:45

and hide them in foil. To

8:47

dispel the notion that banana eating

8:49

was shameful, postcards were

8:51

distributed showing perfectly respectable

8:54

ladies delicately consuming the

8:56

fruit out in the open. I have a

8:58

few of them, of the very proper

9:00

Victorian ladies holding bananas

9:03

eating bananas. Um, they're

9:05

weird. How are they? How

9:07

are they holding them? That's not suggestive.

9:10

They're holding them like they're at picnics, and you know

9:12

they're eating them peeled with the peel hanging

9:14

down on their hands instead of cut up. Um,

9:17

and they're very proper. As inhibitions

9:19

faded, that consumer had to be

9:22

educated. Then they had to be seduced, because

9:24

they had. I mean, knowing about it isn't enough. You have

9:26

to want it, And then they had to be taught

9:28

how to eat them and keep them.

9:31

The banana was so foreign to so

9:33

many, including immigrants at Ellis

9:36

Island who were often given a banana as

9:38

their first taste of America, that

9:40

newspapers had to explain how to let

9:42

them ripen and how to peel them.

9:44

People also needed to be sold on the health

9:47

benefits. United Fruit started

9:49

using innovative tactics like getting

9:52

doctors to endorse bananas as a

9:54

great source of nutrition for babies, and

9:56

after partnering up with another new food

9:58

on the market, cornfl as, the banana

10:01

companies helped revolutionize the

10:03

consumer experience. They

10:06

came up with what was basically the first supermarket

10:08

coupon, and the banana companies

10:11

basically say we're gonna offer a

10:13

deal. If you buy milk,

10:15

corn flakes and bananas, you'll

10:17

get a refund or a coupon for the

10:19

milk for free. Really smart because

10:22

the banana companies didn't pay for it. They convinced

10:24

the milk companies to pay for it. But it was the

10:26

banana company's idea. It all

10:28

worked. Bananas went mainstream

10:31

no longer considered an exotic luxury

10:34

item. Bananas were everywhere, and

10:36

they were cheap, becoming known as the

10:38

poor man's fruit. With

10:40

ubiquity came good and bad. The

10:43

good clever inventions like the

10:45

banana split, just don't ask where

10:47

it originated. Several towns take credit.

10:50

And the bad that heskey banana

10:52

appeal, which was becoming a hazard

10:55

on city streets. A New York

10:57

Times article from a TV before notes

10:59

that a wealthy merchant age seventy

11:02

five slipped on a banana peel while

11:04

coming home from church and broke his leg.

11:06

Quote he is not expected to

11:08

recover. The creation

11:11

of the New York City Sanitation Department was

11:13

absolutely a reaction to the

11:15

ubiquity of banana peals, and these

11:18

uniform sanitation men were sent through the city

11:20

to help solve this hazard. The

11:22

police were also on the case. In eighteen

11:25

nineties six, Theodore Roosevelt, then

11:27

commissioner of the New York City Police Department,

11:30

warned his men of banana peals and

11:32

their quote tendency to toss

11:34

people into the air and bring them down

11:36

with terrific force on the hard pavement.

11:40

But rather than slip in popularity,

11:43

bananas continued on their way to becoming

11:45

the dominant fruit in America. In

11:48

the early nineteen hundreds, consumption

11:50

nearly tripled from fifteen

11:52

million bunches sold to over

11:54

forty million, out selling apples

11:57

and oranges, and by the nineteen

11:59

twenties, bananas were firmly entrenched

12:02

in popular culture and even in

12:04

language. The flapper slang term

12:06

banana oil translated

12:08

to nonsense when he tells you, I

12:11

annoy you that banana

12:13

oil, and all

12:15

die for you that banana

12:18

on. Just a few years

12:20

later, George and Ira Gershwin would

12:22

have a hit with but not for Me, using

12:25

bananas to mean just playing crazy.

12:28

I never water here

12:30

from any cheerful Pollyanna,

12:34

who tells face

12:37

supplies amazing, it's

12:40

a banana

12:44

silent. Film stars like Buster Keaton

12:47

and Charlie Chaplin turned that

12:49

dastardly banana peal into a classic

12:52

comedy gag, and Yes

12:54

we have No Bananas even got a sequel

12:56

song sung here by an exasperated

12:59

Eddie. Can't hey,

13:02

hey, no,

13:05

can take them away?

13:12

Bananas, and specifically gromy

13:14

shell bananas. We're here to stay,

13:17

or so people thought, coming

13:21

up a gromy shehall taste test

13:24

with Broadway superstar Andre

13:26

to Shields. But first,

13:29

a mobituary tribute to another

13:31

popular food of the past. It's

13:34

been called America's forgotten fruit.

13:36

I'm talking, of course, about the paw

13:38

paw. Large, oblong

13:41

and misshapen on the outside, a fruit

13:43

that only a mother could love. With a custardy

13:46

flesh and nickel sized seeds

13:48

on the inside, the papa tastes

13:50

like a cross between a mango and

13:53

a banana. Found

13:55

in at least twenty six states, the

13:58

paw paw was a staple of many of

14:00

American diets, a favorite dessert

14:02

of George Washington, served chilled

14:04

apparently, and eaten by Lewis

14:07

and Clark and their men on their expedition.

14:09

The fruit was even the subject of a song

14:12

sung here by Burl Lives Whero.

14:14

Where is dear little Susie Whero? Where

14:17

is dear little Susie Whero? Where is

14:19

dear little Susie? We're down under the ball?

14:22

So why did the papa go bye

14:24

bye? Much of it has to do with

14:26

the fact that it ripens quickly and doesn't

14:28

ship well, so you're not going to find it

14:30

at the modern day supermarket. You have

14:33

to forage for it, and really who

14:35

has the time? Also, it's a

14:37

little messied beat. New

14:40

York Times article notes a woman could

14:42

not eat a pawpaw in front of her lover because

14:44

quote, the site is disgusting

14:47

to the point of utter disillusion. Still,

14:51

papas are out there. You just need to

14:53

find them. Perhaps they're ripe

14:56

for a comeback. So

15:10

you want that to meet the wizard. That's

15:16

the legendary Andre to Shields

15:18

playing the Wizard in the Broadway

15:21

musical The Whiz. Andre

15:24

has been electrifying audiences

15:26

for decades. You either got the

15:28

hell on, Hey, that's Tom Hain't

15:30

nonibo wad

15:33

down Town went

15:36

down under the ground and

15:38

finally won his first Tony Award

15:41

for Hades Town in at

15:44

age seventy three, Baltimore,

15:46

Maryland. Are

15:49

you in the house? I

15:54

am making good on my promise that

15:56

I would come to New York and become

15:59

someone you'd be proud to call

16:01

your native son or

16:05

Banana is a luxury growing up.

16:08

I grew up in a food desert. There

16:10

was hardly anything that

16:13

was considered produce,

16:16

and even if it were, it wouldn't have

16:18

been fresh. You look at it

16:20

and you think, oh, I shouldn't eat this,

16:23

but that's the banana that we

16:26

we're able to buy in our neighborhood.

16:29

But as he ventured out in the world, Andre

16:31

became a banana expert of sorts.

16:34

Banana is more easily peeled

16:37

if you do it from its black tip

16:40

as opposed to the green

16:43

stem. So pull off

16:45

the black tip and eat it. I've never

16:47

done that. Then peel the banana. You're

16:49

not wasting any part of this. But I told you

16:52

it was serendipitous when you asked Andrea

16:54

d Ship to

16:56

come on your podcast

16:58

and talk about the banana Andre de peals.

17:03

Back in the nineteen sixties, he even participated

17:06

in one of the more trippy

17:08

banana pads. Eat the banana,

17:11

throw the peels into an oven.

17:14

Once they're baked, the fiber

17:16

on the inside becomes

17:19

a lovely substitute for marijuana.

17:21

Are you serious, I'm serious.

17:24

So you you're smoking banana

17:26

peals. Yeah, not the peel,

17:29

but the fiber on the inside. Now,

17:32

Andrea wasn't the only one doing this. A

17:34

number of newspapers and magazines at

17:36

the time shared stories on the popular

17:39

trend, as well as recipes. A

17:41

smoke to banana peel recipe was

17:44

featured in the Notorious Anarchist

17:46

cookbook, and many people

17:48

also believed that the seven

17:50

hit song Mellow Yellow was

17:52

about smoking banana peels netana

18:01

grace. In

18:04

fact, the song wasn't about that. What's

18:07

more, researchers and the FDA

18:09

would investigate and determine that

18:11

banana peels had no hallucinogenic

18:14

properties. But it made for

18:16

some good stories and probably some fun

18:18

parties. Regardless. Andre is

18:20

someone who knows a good banana, and

18:23

with so many banana variety has grown

18:25

around the world, he's tasted more than

18:27

a few in his travels. He told

18:29

me about a transformative experience

18:31

he had while touring the United

18:34

Arab Emirates in It

18:37

was a banana that kicked

18:40

but knocked me out.

18:43

It was intoxicating, and

18:45

that's what you want fruit to be. You wanted

18:47

to change your default

18:50

consciousness. Otherwise why eat it?

18:52

And when I ate it, it tasted

18:55

like a solid version

18:57

of a cream sickle. Okay,

19:01

like candy almost ice cream,

19:03

a dessert, a dessert dessert exactly.

19:06

It made me feel like I needed to repent. It

19:10

was a guilty pleasure. It was a guilty pleasure,

19:13

and you know, to have a banana.

19:16

Do that to you is

19:18

so surprising. We

19:20

have become accustomed to

19:23

a bland, utilitarian banana

19:26

exactly. The banana that Andre

19:28

eight in the UAE might well have been a

19:31

variety similar to the blue java

19:33

or ice cream banana grown

19:35

in Asia, Australia and Hawaii,

19:38

said to have a creamy texture like vanilla

19:40

ice cream or custard. M m.

19:43

You see, there are other more exotic

19:45

varieties of bananas out there.

19:47

In fact, there are still gromy

19:50

shell bananas being grown on small

19:52

lot farms. We acquired

19:54

some from a specialty grower in Miami

19:57

for a taste test on this very

19:59

podcast with Andre to Shields.

20:02

Would he find it as exciting as legend

20:04

has it. For the sake of comparison,

20:07

we started with today's banana of

20:09

the Cavendish. This is the one

20:11

you buy at your local supermarket, and

20:14

exciting it is not. Okay,

20:16

so we're going to take a bite. I'm

20:18

ready when you are. This

20:28

is your traditional taste

20:31

of a banana that you would slice

20:35

on to your cereal. There's nothing

20:37

intense about

20:39

this flavor. If this banana

20:42

were a personality, what would that personality

20:44

be? The one we just

20:47

tasted the BBC

20:49

News, the BBC News

20:51

banana, which is dependable

20:54

or reliable, But but what

20:57

devoid of emotion? Right?

21:00

No razzled asks? And

21:03

then it was time time

21:05

to taste the groomy shell. No,

21:08

here we go, Okay, it's time, it's

21:10

time. Bla,

21:18

what do you think? It's a richer

21:20

taste. It tastes

21:24

definitely like it's come from

21:26

the earth. This banana, the

21:29

gro michell, had

21:31

a little more maturity

21:34

to it.

21:36

It was slightly sexier. I

21:42

wanted to chew it

21:44

more slowly. I wanted to roll it around

21:46

in my mouth. It had

21:48

a few more tones, earthier,

21:53

more mature, sexier.

21:56

Who wouldn't want a gromy shell.

21:59

People today don't know that

22:01

they have settled for a lesser

22:03

banana today. I think

22:05

people do understand that. But in

22:08

terms of present

22:10

day America, that's the

22:12

deal. You want to take it home. We want to

22:14

leave it on the counter for a few days. We

22:16

want to forget about it and then we'll go back.

22:18

And we wanted to look exactly like it was when

22:20

we bought it, or we're not going to

22:23

eat it. Andre To Shields

22:25

is a performer par excellence. He

22:27

can sing, he can dance, he can

22:29

wax poetic about bananas. So

22:32

at the end of our conversation, I

22:34

had one final request. I

22:37

was praying that Tony Emmy

22:39

and Grammy Award winning Andrea Shields would

22:41

indulge my desire to sing, yes

22:44

we have no bananas, a short version of it,

22:46

indulging, Oh,

22:52

yes we have no bananas.

22:56

We have no bananas.

22:59

Today we've

23:01

strink beans and onions

23:03

and big juicy lemon and

23:06

all sorts of fruit, and

23:08

say we have an

23:11

old fashion tomacro

23:15

how long island potato?

23:19

But yes, we have no

23:22

bananas. We

23:24

have no bananas.

23:26

We've got no bananas.

23:29

We have no bananas.

23:33

To dat common

23:40

hats off the Peggy Lee. Why Peggy

23:42

Lee? If that's all there is, just

23:46

keep dancing up. Next

23:48

the Demise of the Groomy Shell. But

23:51

first another mobituary tribute

23:54

toy Forgotten Food. It

23:56

was nine and NASA

23:59

was preparing to and the first man to

24:01

the Moon. Of course, Neil Armstrong,

24:03

Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins would

24:06

have to eat when they were in space. They couldn't

24:08

just drink tang, So NASA

24:10

teamed up with Pillsbury to create

24:12

some innovative products, one of

24:14

which was a rod shaped food designed

24:17

for the astronauts to easily consume

24:19

in their space suits. Enter

24:22

the space food stick. With the

24:24

American public going space crazy, Pillsbury

24:27

decided to create a commercial version.

24:29

Today, the United States has engaged

24:32

in a gigantic effort to send men to the

24:34

Moon. For this effort, Pillsbury

24:36

has developed many special foods. Here

24:39

is the first one to be made available to the public.

24:42

Marketed as a new idea in

24:44

snack foods, Space food

24:46

Sticks came wrapped in shiny foil

24:48

to give that space age appearance, and

24:51

perhaps to jazz up the fact that the product

24:53

kind of looked like a wooden dowl. The

24:55

sticks came in flavors like chocolate,

24:58

caramel, and peanut butter. Ads

25:00

proclaimed that the sticks were only

25:02

about forty four calories, but they nourish

25:05

like a major meal. But just two

25:07

years after space food Sticks hit the market,

25:09

the novelty had worn off. Pillsbury

25:12

decided to remove the word space

25:14

from the name, and consumers seemed even

25:16

less interested in buying food

25:19

sticks. The product would eventually

25:21

be discontinued. Space

25:23

food Sticks are long gone, but are

25:25

now hailed as a forerunner to today's

25:27

energy bars. That's one

25:29

small step for man, one giant

25:32

leap for snack food at

25:34

your grosses next to the instant breakfast

25:36

section, space food sticks

25:38

the energy snack from US Aerospace

25:41

Research and Pillsbury.

25:59

That's Harry Belafonte singing

26:02

Dao, also known as the Banana

26:04

boats song Mr

26:06

Dali Mandali Di Banan.

26:11

The tune was adapted from a Jamaican

26:14

folk song believed to be sung

26:16

by doc workers in the early nineteen hundreds

26:19

as they worked overnight to pack bananas

26:21

onto ships

26:23

seven foot.

26:28

While the beloved song is fun to

26:30

sing, it's ultimately about a serious

26:33

struggle, one that many people were

26:35

facing as bananas became big business.

26:38

The business model of bananas is to sell them for half

26:41

the price of apples and oranges. That's

26:43

banana author Dan Capell again.

26:46

How do they do it? They do it by

26:49

limiting the costs that they had control

26:51

over, and those two costs were land and

26:53

labor. And to

26:56

get land, they would come up with these deals with Basically,

26:59

the banana entrepreneurs owned all

27:01

this land, and then to

27:03

get labor, they exploited

27:06

people. There's no other way to put it. By

27:08

the beginning of the twentieth century, the

27:10

United Fruit Company owned land,

27:12

employed thousands, and controlled

27:15

railroads and utilities throughout

27:17

much of Latin America and the Caribbean. The

27:20

rapid acquisition of geographical and

27:22

political control led to the company's

27:24

nickname El Polpo the

27:27

octopus. Banana workers

27:29

became ponds of United Fruit and

27:31

its competitor, Standard Fruit, later

27:34

known as Dole. The companies seemed

27:36

to stop at nothing to get bananas

27:38

harvested and shipped to the United

27:41

States. The Central American

27:43

nations that produced bananas for United

27:45

Fruit and others became known as

27:48

banana republics. Yes, I

27:50

know you might be thinking of that place where you buy khakis,

27:53

but the origin of the term is far darker.

27:56

Coined by author oh Henry, it

27:58

came to mean governments centrally controlled

28:01

by these banana companies, to

28:03

the detriment of the people who actually lived

28:05

there. They would install friendly governments.

28:08

The workers had no rights. It was tragic

28:10

and horrible. And this is the paradox of the banana.

28:13

The fruit that we love so much comes with a

28:15

very, very bloody cost

28:17

that is mostly unknown and hidden

28:20

to the average consumer. Then and now

28:24

strikes riots and demands

28:26

for better wages became common, but

28:28

they were tamped down, often violently.

28:32

In the Colombian

28:34

military put an end to a strike in

28:36

the town of Sienaga by opening

28:38

fire on demonstrating United Fruit

28:40

banana workers in what became known

28:43

as the Banana Massacre, an

28:45

event that would later be incorporated into

28:47

the Gabrielle Garcia Marquez novel One

28:50

Hundred Years of Solitude. The

28:52

death toll by some instruments was as

28:54

high as two thousand. Another

28:57

dramatic intervention happened several

28:59

decades later, in nineteen fifty four

29:01

and the form of a coup in Guatemala

29:04

to oust the democratically elected

29:06

president Hakabo R Ben's. He

29:09

has campaigned on banana workers

29:11

rights. He's been very careful. He

29:14

has not asked for a lot. He's

29:16

asked for some basic stuff, increases

29:18

in pay. He's asked for some land

29:20

back. But the banana companies can't

29:23

abide this. And at this point in nine the

29:26

banana companies are deeply, deeply

29:28

involved in the United States government,

29:31

so they have a lot of pole. At

29:33

the time, United Fruit controlled

29:36

fort of Guatemala's

29:38

land, so our Ben's plans

29:40

for a grarian reform were unacceptable.

29:43

To the company. United Fruit

29:45

launched a public relations campaign

29:48

to convince the US government and the

29:50

public that our Ben's was a communist

29:52

and that Guatemala was a Soviet satellite

29:55

state in the making, that commissioned

29:57

so called studies on the situation,

30:00

lobbied newspapers to convey their

30:02

preferred narrative, and eventually

30:04

put out a short film entitled why

30:06

the Kremlin hates Bananas

30:09

and Therefore the agents of international

30:11

Communism have selected the United

30:13

Fruit Company as a prime target

30:15

of attack. Remember this was

30:18

the nineteen fifties and the height of the Red

30:20

Scare, and while Guatemalan

30:22

President Urbans did have some

30:24

Communists in his coalition, there

30:27

was no evidence that he himself was one,

30:29

much less working in concert with the Soviets.

30:32

His idol was said to be f d R, and

30:35

many of his social reforms were patterned

30:37

after the New Deal. Nonetheless,

30:39

President Eisenhower was convinced

30:42

that the R Ben's government posed a threat

30:44

and authorized the CIA to oust

30:47

him. A coup was put into motion

30:49

using radio propaganda, bombing

30:52

raids, and a small band of Guatemalan

30:54

exiles and Central American mercenaries.

30:58

This results in the brutal

31:00

overthrow of the Guatemalan

31:02

government and the chaos

31:05

that comes after that. Once our bands is deposed,

31:07

he's humiliated, he's stripped, naked,

31:10

forced to flee to Mexico, and Guatemala

31:12

never really recovers from that.

31:15

For forty or fifty years. Meanwhile,

31:17

on the home front, United Fruit continued

31:20

to win hearts and minds, providing

31:23

books and pamphlets to schools

31:25

on the value of bananas you might

31:27

call it banana Ganda, and making

31:29

movies like Journey to Banana

31:32

Land. Today, fast white

31:34

steamships travel across the Caribbean

31:37

with cargoes more valuable than pirates.

31:39

Gold officers and trim

31:41

white uniforms pick up their golden

31:43

cargoes from a place we called Banana

31:46

Lam. The film goes inside Central

31:48

American countries where everyone is

31:51

hard at work but also happy, of

31:53

course, as bananas are harvested.

31:55

As the plant bends, the bunch

31:58

comes down on the shoulder of another man

32:00

who has called a backer. Each

32:02

bunch ways from fifte seventy five

32:04

palms. The United Fruit wanted

32:07

people to buy their bananas and their

32:09

bananas only, and a few years earlier

32:11

had come up with a way to get brand recognition

32:14

in the form of a certain cartoon character

32:17

with a memorable tingle. I'm

32:19

Takita Banana, and I've come

32:21

to say bananas have to ripen

32:23

in a certain way, and when they click

32:26

with brown and have a golden hue,

32:28

bananas tastes the best and not the best

32:30

for you. Animated spokes

32:33

banana, Miss Chiquita was an instant

32:35

hit. Anyway you want to eat

32:37

them, it's impossible

32:40

to beat them. But banana

32:42

is like the climate of a very very tropical

32:45

equador. So you

32:47

should never put bananas

32:50

in the refriger on sidebar.

32:55

With all due respect to Miss Chiquita, her

32:58

parent company now notes it is okay

33:00

to put bananas in the refrigerator after

33:02

they've ripened. It'll keep them fresh just

33:04

a little longer. The animated

33:07

banana with a bowl of fruit on her head was

33:09

modeled after a movie star, Carmen

33:11

Miranda, known as the Brazilian

33:13

Bombshell, who had shimmied and

33:16

sombered her way to box office gold

33:18

in the nineteen forties, at one point

33:20

becoming the highest paid actress in

33:22

Hollywood. Are you at there? Why

33:25

does everybody look at me?

33:27

And then begin to talk about the

33:30

Pristmas three, I hope.

33:32

That means that everyone he's glad

33:34

to see the Lady and

33:36

the two footi head. Carmen

33:40

Miranda played on the stereotype

33:42

of the fiery, tempered and lustful

33:44

Latin American woman, but her talent

33:47

was undeniable. Her lady

33:49

in the two d fruity hat number in the film,

33:52

The Gang's All Here is a banana

33:55

extravaganza as dancers

33:57

wave giant bananas around.

34:00

The New York Times review of the film did note

34:02

that the dance numbers quote seemed

34:04

to stem straight from Freud. They

34:07

weren't wrong. Carmen Miranda

34:09

was inextricably tied to the banana,

34:12

as she would often remind but don't

34:14

forget people. I think

34:19

there was lots of money being made with bananas

34:21

for Carmen Miranda, United Fruit

34:24

and others, but time

34:26

was running out for the groomy shell. Trouble

34:31

had been brewing since the early nineteen hundreds

34:34

when bananas in Panama were infected

34:37

by a fungus so

34:39

it's named Panama disease. And this fung is

34:42

not only destroys banana plantations

34:44

very quickly, but thouls the

34:46

soil in a way that the bananas cannot grow

34:48

there pretty much ever again,

34:51

and remember that banana biology lesson

34:53

from earlier. The fact that each

34:55

groomy shell banana was essentially

34:57

a clone of every other groomy shell banana

35:00

meant that if one banana were in danger,

35:03

they all were. When

35:05

Panama disease first hit, companies

35:07

tried to outrun it, moving to different

35:10

fields, starting over. But the

35:12

disease was spreading fast and thousands

35:15

of acres of land had to be abandoned.

35:17

Its spread to Nicaragua, Guatemala,

35:20

Costa Rica, Honduras. So

35:24

you have this insane situation. Demand

35:27

is increasing, you need to keep prices

35:29

low, but land is getting more difficult

35:31

to find because of this disease. Finally,

35:35

after decades of battling Panama disease,

35:38

the banana companies had to face facts.

35:40

The grow Michelle as a mass market

35:42

banana was doomed. They

35:45

needed to find another variety.

35:47

Changing the whole industry to another banana,

35:50

which is a huge logistical issue, becomes

35:53

sort of the worst choice to the

35:55

sort of hide bound, entrenched

35:58

banana barons. They don't want to do younger.

36:00

You wait, it's the only choice, right, right,

36:02

And so it's doll that begins experimenting

36:05

with a replacement for the grow michell um

36:07

and experiments with a whole bunch of them, and

36:09

Cavendish is one of them. The

36:12

Cavendish began to replace the grow

36:14

michell in the late nineteen fifties.

36:17

Now, as I've made clear, I find

36:19

the Cavendish to be a boring banana.

36:22

If you heard our season one episode on

36:24

sitcom Deaths and Disappearances,

36:27

you may remember the story of the two Darren's

36:29

from Bewitched, two actors

36:31

in the same role, the second one far

36:34

lesser memorable than the first. You know

36:36

where this is going. The Cavendish

36:38

is the second Darren of bananas.

36:41

There I've said it. It's also

36:43

smaller than the groomy shell, and it bruises

36:45

more easily. But it

36:47

wasn't as susceptible to Panama

36:50

disease. Would Americans

36:52

accept this new, lesser banana.

36:54

There were concerns, but as Dan Capell

36:57

says, they ultimately didn't matter.

37:00

Maybe it's the beginning of the age of fast food. Maybe

37:02

the American palette is not so sophisticated.

37:04

The transition who went fairly smoothly.

37:07

I think there were very few people who

37:10

sort of saw this new banana and recognize

37:12

it as a new banana, or even taste

37:14

it and said, you know, this doesn't taste right, It's not as good as

37:16

the other one. By the nineteen sixties

37:19

the transition was complete. Big

37:21

Banana sold their final groomy

37:23

shells in

37:28

In the years since, we've all come to tolerate,

37:31

if not embrace, the caven dish.

37:33

But the Cavendish itself is also in

37:35

danger, vulnerable to a number

37:38

of diseases. And it's entirely

37:40

possible that, yes, we have no bananas,

37:43

could become our reality if

37:45

the cabin dish goes the way of the groomy

37:47

shell. If you were to eulogize

37:49

to groomy shell, what might you say? I

37:52

would say, it's nice to eulogize

37:54

the growmer shell, and it clearly deserves

37:57

eulogizing. But are

38:00

good bananas out there, other bananas

38:02

that are even better. And the idea

38:05

that we should just give up and just accept

38:07

this mediocre banana um

38:09

and lament the better banana

38:11

that's lost does not have to

38:13

be the future of the banana. We can get

38:16

those great bananas. You're a banana

38:18

optimist. I am.

38:20

I am the ultimate Banana

38:22

Optimists. We leave you now

38:25

with Broadway superstar Andrea

38:27

Shields singing the Chaqueta

38:30

Banana song and

38:32

Jack the Banana and I'm

38:34

here to say, but banana

38:37

on your series like this today

38:40

you loveth the breakfast or

38:42

at any time, no

38:44

matter when you eat it, those bananas

38:47

tastes fine. We're going

38:49

to issue that as its own single. I

38:57

hope you savored this Mobituary.

39:00

May I ask you to please rate and review our

39:02

podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries

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39:07

can follow me on Twitter at Morocca.

39:10

Here. All new episodes of Mobituaries

39:12

every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts

39:15

and check out Mobituaries. Great Lives

39:18

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39:20

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39:22

and audiobook. It includes plenty

39:25

of stories not in the podcast.

39:27

This episode of Mobituaries was produced

39:30

by Zoe Marcus. Our team

39:32

of producers also includes Aaron

39:34

Shrank, Wilcome Martinez Cacceto,

39:36

and Me Morocca. It was

39:39

edited by Moral Walls and engineered

39:41

by Josh Hahn, with fact checking

39:43

by Katherine Newhan. Our production

39:46

company is me On Media. Our

39:48

archival producer is Jamie Benson.

39:50

Our theme music is written by Daniel

39:53

Hart. Indispensable support

39:55

from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gerveis,

39:57

Alan Pang, Reggie Basil, and everyone

40:00

at CBS News Radio. The

40:03

Irrefutable Aaron Shrink is

40:05

our senior producer. Executive

40:07

producers for Mobituaries include

40:09

Steve Raise's and Morocco. The

40:11

series is created by Yours truly

40:14

and as always, undying thanks to Rand

40:16

Morrison and John carp for

40:19

helping breathe life into Mobituaries