Banana - Dan Koeppel

A surprisingly interesting look at bananas - part natural history, part US history, part banana husbandry and biotechnology explanation. Did you know every banana you see in the supermarket is genetically identical? They're all a variety called the Cavendish banana. And if a disease threatens the Cavendish banana (and it does), it will wipe it out completely. In fact, this happened 50 years ago, when Panama disease wiped out the Gros Michel variety that was at the time the only variety sold in the US, and banana companies replaced it with the Cavendish.

Interesting stuff about banana husbandry - the Cavendish banana is completely sterile and only reproduces asexually. Other edible bananas (not eaten in the US - often only grown by small African or Indian villages, where they are the primary sustenance) are only marginally fertile - 1 seed for every 10,000 bananas. This makes traditional breeding very difficult, and so the banana may require biotechnology to be saved.

I had no idea the US government intervened on behalf of banana companies, much as it now does on behalf of oil companies. Come to think of it, I am pretty naive about US government intervention - I stupidly thought it was motivated by morals and ethics, rather than by moneyed interests.

A fun book - now I'm on the lookout for unusual banana types. I tried the baby bananas sold at my supermarket - they were sweeter and creamier than regular bananas. I liked them a lot. Now I'm hoping to find more exotic bananas - especially the Lacatan variety grown in the Phillipines.

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
Dan Koeppel
2007
Available from Amazon