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March 18th, 2008 edition of The Daily Sauce: Food and Wine. Visit Our Food and Wine Archive.
Yes, We Have No Bananas
We’re suckers for books on the history of everyday foods. Salt, cod, citrus, beans, oysters, lobsters, Twinkies, sushi, candy, even Sweet ‘n Low … we don’t care; we devour these books as soon as they're released. And now we’ve got a new one. We were well aware of the banana’s dark political history (the term banana republic’s not for nothing), but it took Popular Scientist journalist Dan Koeppel to peel away the mysteries of the innocent-looking yellow fruit millions of us eat every day. His new book, Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, not only provides a very readable history of the banana, but also the frightening scenario of a world where, as the Tin Pan Alley song says, we have no bananas. Because bananas are seedless and sexless, they are essentially genetic clones of each other, making each crop susceptible to the same diseases. (We’ve always thought bananas bland tasting and now we know why.) Koeppel delves into how the banana we eat today is not the one eaten by our grandparents. Now that’s food for thought. Sauce pick: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (Hudson Street Press) Price: $23.95 Where to get it: All major bookstores |
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