Banana (25 page)

GENESIS:
Was the banana the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? The Koran, in retelling the tale, implies as much, and over the centuries several Bible scholars have also reached that conclusion. And why not? The banana is lush, tropical, and sexually suggestive. It's far more tempting, in a purely allegorical sense, than an apple. (Eve, by the way, besides being chaste until that point, was a product of non-sexual reproduction: She was made from Adam's rib just as bananas are made, not from seed, but from parts cut from grown plants.)

PREHISTORY:
Tiny, seed-bearing bananas—none much bigger than your index finger—grow wild in the tropical regions of Southeast Asia. These fruits are semi-edible but hardly substantial enough for humans to cultivate. But—and this is the first mystery of the banana—at some point seedless bananas emerge (possibly though a mutation or inadvertent crossbreeding via a windblown seed). Unlike the seeded bananas, these fruits are larger and easier to eat.

C
. 5000
BC:
Recently uncovered archaeological evidence suggests that bananas were cultivated in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea. A 2003 archaeological expedition found the oldest evidence of vestigial bananas there, providing further proof of early domestication in this and other parts of Southeast Asia.

500
BC:
The first written accounts of human cultivation of bananas are created, in India. The fruits are grown in the same way they are today. Since they are seedless (and therefore sterile), they are propagated willfully: Humans harvest shoots from the large trees and replant them. This makes the banana a highly practical hedge against starvation, since the fruit can easily be cultivated and transported. The big mystery is how bananas got from the jungles of what is now Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar all the way to India. There's no doubt that bananas are important: Hindu legend calls them “the fruit of the wise men.” But the actual path of the banana's dispersion is something today's genetic researchers are just beginning to uncover.

327
BC:
Alexander the Great, returning from his conquests, brings bananas from India—the first time they appear in the Western world. Hindu mythology also places the banana, not the apple, in the Garden of Paradise.

50
BC:
Pliny the Elder, writing in the first known compendium of natural history, discusses the origins of the banana. He suggests—probably based on records of Alexander's visit—that the banana, or
musa
, as he calls it (still the Latin term for the banana genus), comes from India, though other accounts over the coming century offer different origins, including Syria, Egypt, and China.

650:
Middle Eastern armies and traders bring bananas to Africa. The fruit is given the name
banan
, which is a variation of the Arabic word for “finger.” From the eastern side of the continent, it slowly migrates west, reaching Guinea. Cultivation centers around Lake Victoria, where it becomes the staple food. (Today, the “green circle” around the lake remains the place in the world where banana consumption is highest, and most essential, accounting for as much as 70 percent of regional caloric intake.) The banana also becomes part of a burgeoning slave trade between central and northern Africa, presaging a role it will take in the Caribbean and Central America a millennium later.

1402:
Portuguese solders, part of early colonial expeditionary forces, bring the banana from Guinea to their Canary Islands colony. The island chain, today a possession of Spain, remains one of the world's key banana exporters, providing a large percentage of the fruit eaten by Europeans.

1516:
Spanish missionary Father Tomás de Berlanga brings the banana to the Caribbean. The first cultivation is in Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic).

1600:
Spanish settlers grow bananas in Florida, but—then as now—the southern tip of the United States is just a little wrong climactically: Winter frosts make efficient cultivation impossible. Bananas remain a local staple.

1750:
Carolus Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy, dubs the banana
Musa sapentium
, or “wise fruit.”

1799:
Captain James Cook finds bananas on Hawaii.

1826:
While living in Mauritius, British naturalist Charles Telfair obtains the Cavendish banana from South China, providing yet another link in the journey of the yellow banana to the Americas.

1836:
The Duke of Devonshire receives plants from Mauritius at his estate, Chatsworth, in England.

1837:
The Chatsworth bananas are officially “described” to the British Linnaean society.

1848–55:
Missionary John Williams brings Cavendish bananas to the South Pacific, leaving healthy plants on Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and Hawaii.

1870:
Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker purchases 160 bunches of Gros Michel bananas in Jamaica, speeds back to the United States, and sells his stock in Jersey City for $2 a bunch. This is the first known commercial banana transaction in the United States.

1870:
Baker's efforts lead to a minor banana craze, and for the first (and possibly only) time in the fruit's history, the banana is seen as a delicacy to be savored by the elite rather than as a handy and cheap staple. As related by Virginia Scott Jenkins,
The Domestic Cyclopaedia of Practical Information
offers advice on consuming the odd fruit: “Bananas are eaten raw, either alone or cut into slices with sugar and cream or wine and orange juice. They are also roasted, fried, or boiled and are made into fritters, preserves, and marmalades.” Other household tomes offer advice on how to peel the suggestive fruit, a problem among Victorian diners first encountering it. Some merchants attempt to remedy the situation by selling sliced bananas in foil wrappers.

1871–80:
Minor C. Keith, a twenty-three-year-old Brooklyn entrepreneur, secures a contract to build a national railroad in Costa Rica. The building of the railroad costs over five thousand lives, including those of Keith's two brothers. As a way to create business for the trains, Keith plants bananas in cleared rain forest along the trackside. This begins a long cycle of lopsided land deals and forest clearing operations benefiting banana entrepreneurs.

1876:
The horticultural hall of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition features bananas—positioned, for the first time, as a cheap and healthy substitute for apples. It is the beginning of America's love affair with the fruit (the other major sensation at the exhibition: Alexander Graham Bell's telephone).

1885:
As more and more American families find out what bananas are—and want them—Lorenzo Dow Baker starts the first banana importing company. Boston Fruit would later change its name to United Fruit and finally to Chiquita.

1894:
The U.S. military intervenes in Nicaragua to quell possible land and labor reforms. The action is the first in a long series of North American exploits in Central America that happen mostly at the behest of the banana companies. Over thirty more instances of U.S. involvement, many of which still have bloody repercussions today, are recorded over the next century.

1899:
Scientific American
offers scholarly advice on the best techniques for peeling a banana.

1900:
Boston Fruit changes its name to United Fruit; it won't officially become Chiquita until the 1970s. A rival company, Standard Fruit, is founded in New Orleans, the central arrival point for all U.S. banana imports. That company will also change its name, to Dole, in the 1970s.

1900:
U.S. banana entrepreneurs begin to settle outposts throughout Central America, creating private, elite enclaves—some of them entirely raucous, with brothels and honky-tonks—that are far removed from the dismal conditions the workers they employ labor and live under. If there are protests, the U.S. military is quick to intervene.

1900:
Panama disease, which would later decimate world banana crops, is identified in Java, though it has yet to be given a name. A variant of the disease is today attacking the banana variety that accounts for 99 percent of all U.S., Canadian, and European imports.

1901:
Guatemala hires United Fruit to run its national post office; the company will soon assume governmental functions in most of its Central American client nations.

1902–35:
United Fruit paints its shipping vessels white, dubbing them the Great White Fleet. It outfits the ships with fancy state-rooms and tourist amenities as a way of making sure that boats laden with bananas in one direction will carry some kind of cargo—in this case, wealthy Americans—in the other (the tourists return home by train). The enterprise is a huge success, and—though it is interrupted by World War I and finally terminated during the second global conflict—the company can claim credit as an innovator of the all-inclusive Caribbean cruise.

1903:
Panama disease appears for the first time in Central America. How the blight got from the South Pacific to Panama remains a mystery, though it may be the first case of global commerce carrying a pathogen along with its economic benefits.

1904:
United Fruit implements a radio technology that allows instantaneous communications between approaching cargo vessels and mainland plantations. The “tropical radio” system, in turn, allows precision harvesting of bananas. In the past, the picking began as soon as the boat appeared on the horizon, resulting in inefficient, all-night frenzies to harvest and load fruit before it spoiled. Now, with advance notice of a ship's arrival, picking can be perfectly timed—essential for the rapid delivery of a product with a shelf life of ten days or less.

1904:
United Fruit is granted a ninety-nine-year, unlimited license to build railroads in Guatemala and cultivate all lands in a wide swath alongside the newly laid tracks.

1904:
The banana split is invented in Pennsylvania.

1904:
The banana split is invented in Columbus, Ohio.

1905:
Honduras begins a nearly century-long reign as the world's largest banana exporter.

1906:
The banana split is invented in Iowa.

1907:
The banana split is invented in Wilmington, Ohio.

1910:
An early banana laboratory is opened in Costa Rica. Scientists show some interest in breeding disease-resistant fruit, but then, as now, a key conflict emerges: Should efforts be focused on building better bananas, or finding more and more potent substances—pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals—to stop pests before they damage crops? Nearly all the time, the banana companies choose the environmentally devastating latter alternative.

1910:
Samuel Zemurray, future president of United Fruit, is challenged by the U.S.-backed government of Honduras. Zemurray organizes a private coup, led by a pair of gangsters named Guy “Machine Gun” Molony and Lee Christmas. It takes just four weeks for the Honduran regime to fall; a friendlier president is installed, and his first significant act is to grant a huge banana concession to Zemurray.

1911:
A rebellion against the new Honduran government is quelled by U.S. troops, who are sent, ostensibly, to guard American banana workers.

1913:
United Fruit strikes a land-for-railroads deal in Honduras.

1915:
United Fruit's Great White Fleet now has ninety-five ships, each of which can carry up to a half million bananas.

1916:
The Great White Fleet is temporarily dry-docked after legendary German naval commander Count Felix von Luckner targets—and sinks—several of the vessels.

1920:
Guatemalan banana workers attempt to unionize. U.S. marines arrive to “police” the nation.