Speaker 1: We have no bananas. That's Louis Prima singing the novelty
Speaker 1: song Yes we have No Bananas in nine. The song
Speaker 1: was actually written in a century ago and was so
Speaker 1: popular a million copies of its sheet music sold in
Speaker 1: a matter of months. As Variety wrote, its success is unexplainable,
Speaker 1: although the title as a catch line may be a
Speaker 1: cause we have no bananas today. That title came from
Speaker 1: a phrase supposedly uttered by a Greek grocer at a
Speaker 1: Long Island fruit stand. Some believe the song was inspired
Speaker 1: by an actual banana shortage. Regardless, the song was such
Speaker 1: a craze that demand for the fruit skyrocketed, causing a
Speaker 1: well runs on bananas and now. It might surprise you
Speaker 1: that the banana that everyone was going eight four at
Speaker 1: the time was not the banana you find at your
Speaker 1: local grocery store today. This was an entirely different variety
Speaker 1: of banana, one that dominated the US market for decades
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.
Speaker 1: Its name the grow Michell French for big Mike. For many,
Speaker 1: this was the only banana they would ever know, and
Speaker 1: it was delicious, has a nicer taste and more banana
Speaker 1: eat taste. It is better than the banana we eat now.
Speaker 1: When the grow Michelle had to be replaced, banana companies
Speaker 1: weren't sure the new banana, the one we eat today,
Speaker 1: which is known as the Caven dish, would even be accepted.
Speaker 1: When the switch had to happen, they were like, no
Speaker 1: housewife is going to buy these because they just don't
Speaker 1: taste as good. So what happened to this loved banana
Speaker 1: We'll explain, and along the way take a look back
Speaker 1: at some other forgotten foods, and I'll chat with Broadway
Speaker 1: legend Andre de Shields about his special banana memories. And
Speaker 1: that's what you want for it to be. You wanted
Speaker 1: to change your default consciousness. Otherwise why eat it? And
Speaker 1: yes there will be singing. We've strink beans and onions
Speaker 1: and big juicy lemon and all sorts of fruit, and
Speaker 1: say from CBS Sunday morning, and I heart I'm Morocca.
Speaker 1: And this is mobituaries, this moment, the groomy shell death
Speaker 1: of a banana. Ah, the sound of mourning. Actually it's
Speaker 1: this sound that means morning to me, The dulcet tones
Speaker 1: of frozen bananas getting ground up. That's pretty much the
Speaker 1: only way I consume bananas these days in a blender
Speaker 1: with some other ingredients. To me, a banana is simply
Speaker 1: a potassium delivery system, too boring to eat on its own,
Speaker 1: which is why I was fascinated to learn that this
Speaker 1: wasn't always the case. That my grandparents enjoyed much better bananas.
Speaker 1: So how did we get here to these blah banas.
Speaker 1: I never intended to be sort of the world expert
Speaker 1: on any particular topic, let alone bananas, but I have
Speaker 1: come to um not just accepted, but embrace it. That's
Speaker 1: Dan Capell, the author of Banana, The Fate of the
Speaker 1: Fruit that Changed the World. He's researched and traveled the world,
Speaker 1: learning everything there is to know about bananas. Bananas were
Speaker 1: the very first cultivated fruit, and so we're talking ten
Speaker 1: thousand or more years that bananas have been part of
Speaker 1: the human diet and the human story. Actually, but in
Speaker 1: terms of bananas being available to people who don't live
Speaker 1: in places where bananas can grow, um, that's less than
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty years. The earliest bananas grew in the
Speaker 1: wild in Southeast Asia and then spread to other parts
Speaker 1: of the world. Spanish and Portuguese explorers and missionaries brought
Speaker 1: bananas to the New World in the fifteen hundreds, where
Speaker 1: the fruit would flourish in the Caribbean and Central America.
Speaker 1: The banana made its splashy US debut at the Centennial
Speaker 1: Exhibition in Philadelphia in eighteen seventy six. The event marking
Speaker 1: the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence introduced it's
Speaker 1: nearly ten mill the visitors to all sorts of innovations.
Speaker 1: Heinz Ketchup, a steam powered monorail, a suitcase that turned
Speaker 1: into a bathtub really, and Alexander Graham Bell's invention of
Speaker 1: a little something called the telephone, which is funny because
Speaker 1: as a child, I'm sure I tried to talk into
Speaker 1: a banana. But the banana plant in the exhibitions Horticultural
Speaker 1: Hall was reportedly such a sensation that a guard had
Speaker 1: to be put on lookout to prevent visitors from trying
Speaker 1: to grab a souvenir. Had people seen pictures of it
Speaker 1: before or did it just come as this surprise, this
Speaker 1: thing from almost like outer space. I think that exhibition
Speaker 1: probably made the banana more real to people. These exhibitions
Speaker 1: captured people's imaginations especially the imaginations of some entrepreneurs who
Speaker 1: then started looking at ways to bring bananas to the US.
Speaker 1: Those entrepreneurs began scouting tropical regions where bananas flourished, and
Speaker 1: while there were a number of rieties to choose from,
Speaker 1: sellers seized on the gromy shell banana, first grown on
Speaker 1: the Caribbean island of Martinique in the eighteen thirties. That
Speaker 1: in Jamaica, the groomy shell had spread throughout the Caribbean
Speaker 1: and Central America, and it became top banana in the
Speaker 1: US largely for one reason. The most important thing is
Speaker 1: that it's going to survive shipping. If dozens of us shipping,
Speaker 1: nothing else matters. And the grower shell survives shipping better
Speaker 1: than any other banana because of its tough skin and
Speaker 1: and it's slow ripening characteristics. And so that was the
Speaker 1: one that they were going to make their money on.
Speaker 1: Another benefit, every banana in the bunch or finger in
Speaker 1: the hand, if we're using proper terminology here, was exactly
Speaker 1: the same. Okay, quick banana biology lesson. You've probably noticed
Speaker 1: that the bananas you eat don't have seeds, those little
Speaker 1: black circles you might see. Our vestigial seeds remnants of
Speaker 1: an early species of banana. No seeds means bananas reproduce
Speaker 1: by a transplanting a piece of one plant, known as
Speaker 1: a sucker, to start growing another. They're basically clones. This
Speaker 1: means that most every banana we eat is genetically identical,
Speaker 1: tasting exactly the same, but also equally vulnerable. With every
Speaker 1: major company growing and selling the groomy shell and only
Speaker 1: the grow michell, the banana industry established what's called a monoculture,
Speaker 1: growing only one variety of a single crop. It would
Speaker 1: prove to be a dangerous gambit. After settling on the
Speaker 1: growny shell, the entrepreneurs needed to figure out how to
Speaker 1: bring these bananas in mass quantities to the United States.
Speaker 1: One of the first major companies to figure this out
Speaker 1: was the United Fruit, which would later become Chiquita. The
Speaker 1: company devised and innovative solution refrigerated shipping. This is not
Speaker 1: in the days of ubiquitous refrigeration. These banana ships had
Speaker 1: ice in them, tons and tons of ice that were
Speaker 1: put in these colds, and there were these elaborate ventilation
Speaker 1: systems into the cargo holes that would direct the cold
Speaker 1: towards them. The ships were painted white to keep them cool.
Speaker 1: Those refrigerated ships, each of which could carry up to
Speaker 1: a half million bananas, would become known as the Great
Speaker 1: White Fleet, eventually the largest private navy in the world.
Speaker 1: But there were still a few hurdles for the banana business,
Speaker 1: namely getting consumers to accept the product. For many of
Speaker 1: the prim and proper women of the Victorian era, eating
Speaker 1: a banana was simply too risque given the fruits suggestive shape.
Speaker 1: Many chose to slice or cut up their bananas and
Speaker 1: hide them in foil. To dispel the notion that banana
Speaker 1: eating was shameful, postcards were distributed showing perfectly respectable ladies
Speaker 1: delicately consuming the fruit out in the open. I have
Speaker 1: a few of them, of the very proper Victorian ladies
Speaker 1: holding bananas eating bananas. Um, they're weird. How are they?
Speaker 1: How are they holding them? That's not suggestive. They're holding
Speaker 1: them like they're at picnics, and you know they're eating
Speaker 1: them peeled with the peel hanging down on their hands
Speaker 1: instead of cut up. Um, and they're very proper. As
Speaker 1: inhibitions faded, that consumer had to be educated. Then they
Speaker 1: had to be seduced, because they had. I mean, knowing
Speaker 1: about it isn't enough. You have to want it, And
Speaker 1: then they had to be taught how to eat them
Speaker 1: and keep them. The banana was so foreign to so many,
Speaker 1: including immigrants at Ellis Island who were often given a
Speaker 1: banana as their first taste of America, that newspapers had
Speaker 1: to explain how to let them ripen and how to
Speaker 1: peel them. People also needed to be sold on the
Speaker 1: health benefits. United Fruit started using innovative tactics like getting
Speaker 1: doctors to endorse bananas as a great source of nutrition
Speaker 1: for babies, and after partnering up with another new food
Speaker 1: on the market, cornfl as, the banana companies helped revolutionize
Speaker 1: the consumer experience. They came up with what was basically
Speaker 1: the first supermarket coupon, and the banana companies basically say
Speaker 1: we're gonna offer a deal. If you buy milk, corn
Speaker 1: flakes and bananas, you'll get a refund or a coupon
Speaker 1: for the milk for free. Really smart because the banana
Speaker 1: companies didn't pay for it. They convinced the milk companies
Speaker 1: to pay for it. But it was the banana company's idea.
Speaker 1: It all worked. Bananas went mainstream no longer considered an
Speaker 1: exotic luxury item. Bananas were everywhere, and they were cheap,
Speaker 1: becoming known as the poor man's fruit. With ubiquity came
Speaker 1: good and bad. The good clever inventions like the banana split,
Speaker 1: just don't ask where it originated. Several towns take credit.
Speaker 1: And the bad that heskey banana appeal, which was becoming
Speaker 1: a hazard on city streets. A New York Times article
Speaker 1: from a TV before notes that a wealthy merchant age
Speaker 1: seventy five slipped on a banana peel while coming home
Speaker 1: from church and broke his leg. Quote he is not
Speaker 1: expected to recover. The creation of the New York City
Speaker 1: Sanitation Department was absolutely a reaction to the ubiquity of
Speaker 1: banana peals, and these uniform sanitation men were sent through
Speaker 1: the city to help solve this hazard. The police were
Speaker 1: also on the case. In eighteen nineties six, Theodore Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: then commissioner of the New York City Police Department, warned
Speaker 1: his men of banana peals and their quote tendency to
Speaker 1: toss people into the air and bring them down with
Speaker 1: terrific force on the hard pavement. But rather than slip
Speaker 1: in popularity, bananas continued on their way to becoming the
Speaker 1: dominant fruit in America. In the early nineteen hundreds, consumption
Speaker 1: nearly tripled from fifteen million bunches sold to over forty million,
Speaker 1: out selling apples and oranges, and by the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: bananas were firmly entrenched in popular culture and even in language.
Speaker 1: The flapper slang term banana oil translated to nonsense when
Speaker 1: he tells you, I annoy you that banana oil, and
Speaker 1: all die for you that banana on. Just a few
Speaker 1: years later, George and Ira Gershwin would have a hit
Speaker 1: with but not for Me, using bananas to mean just
Speaker 1: playing crazy. I never water here from any cheerful Pollyanna,
Speaker 1: who tells face supplies amazing, it's a banana silent. Film
Speaker 1: stars like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin turned that dastardly
Speaker 1: banana peal into a classic comedy gag, and Yes we
Speaker 1: have No Bananas even got a sequel song sung here
Speaker 1: by an exasperated Eddie. Can't hey, hey, no, can take
Speaker 1: them away? Bananas, and specifically gromy shell bananas. We're here
Speaker 1: to stay, or so people thought, coming up a gromy
Speaker 1: shehall taste test with Broadway superstar Andre to Shields. But first,
Speaker 1: a mobituary tribute to another popular food of the past.
Speaker 1: It's been called America's forgotten fruit. I'm talking, of course,
Speaker 1: about the paw paw. Large, oblong and misshapen on the outside,
Speaker 1: a fruit that only a mother could love. With a
Speaker 1: custardy flesh and nickel sized seeds on the inside, the
Speaker 1: papa tastes like a cross between a mango and a banana.
Speaker 1: Found in at least twenty six states, the paw paw
Speaker 1: was a staple of many of American diets, a favorite
Speaker 1: dessert of George Washington, served chilled apparently, and eaten by
Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark and their men on their expedition. The
Speaker 1: fruit was even the subject of a song sung here
Speaker 1: by Burl Lives Whero. Where is dear little Susie Whero?
Speaker 1: Where is dear little Susie Whero? Where is dear little Susie?
Speaker 1: We're down under the ball? So why did the papa
Speaker 1: go bye bye? Much of it has to do with
Speaker 1: the fact that it ripens quickly and doesn't ship well,
Speaker 1: so you're not going to find it at the modern
Speaker 1: day supermarket. You have to forage for it, and really
Speaker 1: who has the time? Also, it's a little messied beat.
Speaker 1: New York Times article notes a woman could not eat
Speaker 1: a pawpaw in front of her lover because quote, the
Speaker 1: site is disgusting to the point of utter disillusion. Still,
Speaker 1: papas are out there. You just need to find them.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they're ripe for a comeback. So you want that
Speaker 1: to meet the wizard. That's the legendary Andre to Shields
Speaker 1: playing the Wizard in the Broadway musical The Whiz. Andre
Speaker 1: has been electrifying audiences for decades. You either got the
Speaker 1: hell on, Hey, that's Tom Hain't nonibo wad down Town
Speaker 1: went down under the ground and finally won his first
Speaker 1: Tony Award for Hades Town in at age seventy three, Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 1: Are you in the house? I am making good on
Speaker 1: my promise that I would come to New York and
Speaker 1: become someone you'd be proud to call your native son
Speaker 1: or Banana is a luxury growing up. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a food desert. There was hardly anything that was
Speaker 1: considered produce, and even if it were, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been fresh. You look at it and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't eat this, but that's the banana that we
Speaker 1: we're able to buy in our neighborhood. But as he
Speaker 1: ventured out in the world, Andre became a banana expert
Speaker 1: of sorts. Banana is more easily peeled if you do
Speaker 1: it from its black tip as opposed to the green stem.
Speaker 1: So pull off the black tip and eat it. I've
Speaker 1: never done that. Then peel the banana. You're not wasting
Speaker 1: any part of this. But I told you it was
Speaker 1: serendipitous when you asked Andrea d Ship to come on
Speaker 1: your podcast and talk about the banana Andre de peals.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen sixties, he even participated in one
Speaker 1: of the more trippy banana pads. Eat the banana, throw
Speaker 1: the peels into an oven. Once they're baked, the fiber
Speaker 1: on the inside becomes a lovely substitute for marijuana. Are
Speaker 1: you serious, I'm serious. So you you're smoking banana peals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not the peel, but the fiber on the inside. Now,
Speaker 1: Andrea wasn't the only one doing this. A number of
Speaker 1: newspapers and magazines at the time shared stories on the
Speaker 1: popular trend, as well as recipes. A smoke to banana
Speaker 1: peel recipe was featured in the Notorious Anarchist cookbook, and
Speaker 1: many people also believed that the seven hit song Mellow
Speaker 1: Yellow was about smoking banana peels netana grace. In fact,
Speaker 1: the song wasn't about that. What's more, researchers and the
Speaker 1: FDA would investigate and determine that banana peels had no
Speaker 1: hallucinogenic properties. But it made for some good stories and
Speaker 1: probably some fun parties. Regardless. Andre is someone who knows
Speaker 1: a good banana, and with so many banana variety has
Speaker 1: grown around the world, he's tasted more than a few
Speaker 1: in his travels. He told me about a transformative experience
Speaker 1: he had while touring the United Arab Emirates in It
Speaker 1: was a banana that kicked but knocked me out. It
Speaker 1: was intoxicating, and that's what you want fruit to be.
Speaker 1: You wanted to change your default consciousness. Otherwise why eat it?
Speaker 1: And when I ate it, it tasted like a solid
Speaker 1: version of a cream sickle. Okay, like candy almost ice cream,
Speaker 1: a dessert, a dessert dessert exactly. It made me feel
Speaker 1: like I needed to repent. It was a guilty pleasure.
Speaker 1: It was a guilty pleasure, and you know, to have
Speaker 1: a banana. Do that to you is so surprising. We
Speaker 1: have become accustomed to a bland, utilitarian banana exactly. The
Speaker 1: banana that Andre eight in the UAE might well have
Speaker 1: been a variety similar to the blue java or ice
Speaker 1: cream banana grown in Asia, Australia and Hawaii, said to
Speaker 1: have a creamy texture like vanilla ice cream or custard.
Speaker 1: M m. You see, there are other more exotic varieties
Speaker 1: of bananas out there. In fact, there are still gromy
Speaker 1: shell bananas being grown on small lot farms. We acquired
Speaker 1: some from a specialty grower in Miami for a taste
Speaker 1: test on this very podcast with Andre to Shields. Would
Speaker 1: he find it as exciting as legend has it. For
Speaker 1: the sake of comparison, we started with today's banana of
Speaker 1: the Cavendish. This is the one you buy at your
Speaker 1: local supermarket, and exciting it is not. Okay, so we're
Speaker 1: going to take a bite. I'm ready when you are.
Speaker 1: This is your traditional taste of a banana that you
Speaker 1: would slice on to your cereal. There's nothing intense about
Speaker 1: this flavor. If this banana were a personality, what would
Speaker 1: that personality be? The one we just tasted the BBC News,
Speaker 1: the BBC News banana, which is dependable or reliable, But
Speaker 1: but what devoid of emotion? Right? No razzled asks? And
Speaker 1: then it was time time to taste the groomy shell. No,
Speaker 1: here we go, Okay, it's time, it's time. Bla, what
Speaker 1: do you think? It's a richer taste. It tastes definitely
Speaker 1: like it's come from the earth. This banana, the gro michell,
Speaker 1: had a little more maturity to it. It was slightly sexier.
Speaker 1: I wanted to chew it more slowly. I wanted to
Speaker 1: roll it around in my mouth. It had a few
Speaker 1: more tones, earthier, more mature, sexier. Who wouldn't want a
Speaker 1: gromy shell. People today don't know that they have settled
Speaker 1: for a lesser banana today. I think people do understand that.
Speaker 1: But in terms of present day America, that's the deal.
Speaker 1: You want to take it home. We want to leave
Speaker 1: it on the counter for a few days. We want
Speaker 1: to forget about it and then we'll go back. And
Speaker 1: we wanted to look exactly like it was when we
Speaker 1: bought it, or we're not going to eat it. Andre
Speaker 1: To Shields is a performer par excellence. He can sing,
Speaker 1: he can dance, he can wax poetic about bananas. So
Speaker 1: at the end of our conversation, I had one final request.
Speaker 1: I was praying that Tony Emmy and Grammy Award winning
Speaker 1: Andrea Shields would indulge my desire to sing, yes we
Speaker 1: have no bananas, a short version of it, indulging, Oh,
Speaker 1: yes we have no bananas. We have no bananas. Today
Speaker 1: we've strink beans and onions and big juicy lemon and
Speaker 1: all sorts of fruit, and say we have an old
Speaker 1: fashion tomacro how long island potato? But yes, we have
Speaker 1: no bananas. We have no bananas. We've got no bananas.
Speaker 1: We have no bananas. To dat common hats off the
Speaker 1: Peggy Lee. Why Peggy Lee? If that's all there is,
Speaker 1: just keep dancing up. Next the Demise of the Groomy Shell.
Speaker 1: But first another mobituary tribute toy Forgotten Food. It was
Speaker 1: nine and NASA was preparing to and the first man
Speaker 1: to the Moon. Of course, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and
Speaker 1: Michael Collins would have to eat when they were in space.
Speaker 1: They couldn't just drink tang, So NASA teamed up with
Speaker 1: Pillsbury to create some innovative products, one of which was
Speaker 1: a rod shaped food designed for the astronauts to easily
Speaker 1: consume in their space suits. Enter the space food stick.
Speaker 1: With the American public going space crazy, Pillsbury decided to
Speaker 1: create a commercial version. Today, the United States has engaged
Speaker 1: in a gigantic effort to send men to the Moon.
Speaker 1: For this effort, Pillsbury has developed many special foods. Here
Speaker 1: is the first one to be made available to the public.
Speaker 1: Marketed as a new idea in snack foods, Space food
Speaker 1: Sticks came wrapped in shiny foil to give that space
Speaker 1: age appearance, and perhaps to jazz up the fact that
Speaker 1: the product kind of looked like a wooden dowl. The
Speaker 1: sticks came in flavors like chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter.
Speaker 1: Ads proclaimed that the sticks were only about forty four calories,
Speaker 1: but they nourish like a major meal. But just two
Speaker 1: years after space food Sticks hit the market, the novelty
Speaker 1: had worn off. Pillsbury decided to remove the word space
Speaker 1: from the name, and consumers seemed even less interested in
Speaker 1: buying food sticks. The product would eventually be discontinued. Space
Speaker 1: food Sticks are long gone, but are now hailed as
Speaker 1: a forerunner to today's energy bars. That's one small step
Speaker 1: for man, one giant leap for snack food at your
Speaker 1: grosses next to the instant breakfast section, space food sticks
Speaker 1: the energy snack from US Aerospace Research and Pillsbury. That's
Speaker 1: Harry Belafonte singing Dao, also known as the Banana boats
Speaker 1: song Mr Dali Mandali Di Banan. The tune was adapted
Speaker 1: from a Jamaican folk song believed to be sung by
Speaker 1: doc workers in the early nineteen hundreds as they worked
Speaker 1: overnight to pack bananas onto ships seven foot. While the
Speaker 1: beloved song is fun to sing, it's ultimately about a
Speaker 1: serious struggle, one that many people were facing as bananas
Speaker 1: became big business. The business model of bananas is to
Speaker 1: sell them for half the price of apples and oranges.
Speaker 1: That's banana author Dan Capell again. How do they do it?
Speaker 1: They do it by limiting the costs that they had
Speaker 1: control over, and those two costs were land and labor.
Speaker 1: And to get land, they would come up with these
Speaker 1: deals with Basically, the banana entrepreneurs owned all this land,
Speaker 1: and then to get labor, they exploited people. There's no
Speaker 1: other way to put it. By the beginning of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, the United Fruit Company owned land, employed thousands,
Speaker 1: and controlled railroads and utilities throughout much of Latin America
Speaker 1: and the Caribbean. The rapid acquisition of geographical and political
Speaker 1: control led to the company's nickname El Polpo the octopus.
Speaker 1: Banana workers became ponds of United Fruit and its competitor,
Speaker 1: Standard Fruit, later known as Dole. The companies seemed to
Speaker 1: stop at nothing to get bananas harvested and shipped to
Speaker 1: the United States. The Central American nations that produced bananas
Speaker 1: for United Fruit and others became known as banana republics. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know you might be thinking of that place where
Speaker 1: you buy khakis, but the origin of the term is
Speaker 1: far darker. Coined by author oh Henry, it came to
Speaker 1: mean governments centrally controlled by these banana companies, to the
Speaker 1: detriment of the people who actually lived there. They would
Speaker 1: install friendly governments. The workers had no rights. It was
Speaker 1: tragic and horrible. And this is the paradox of the banana.
Speaker 1: The fruit that we love so much comes with a very,
Speaker 1: very bloody cost that is mostly unknown and hidden to
Speaker 1: the average consumer. Then and now strikes riots and demands
Speaker 1: for better wages became common, but they were tamped down,
Speaker 1: often violently. In the Colombian military put an end to
Speaker 1: a strike in the town of Sienaga by opening fire
Speaker 1: on demonstrating United Fruit banana workers in what became known
Speaker 1: as the Banana Massacre, an event that would later be
Speaker 1: incorporated into the Gabrielle Garcia Marquez novel One Hundred Years
Speaker 1: of Solitude. The death toll by some instruments was as
Speaker 1: high as two thousand. Another dramatic intervention happened several decades later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four and the form of a coup
Speaker 1: in Guatemala to oust the democratically elected president Hakabo R Ben's.
Speaker 1: He has campaigned on banana workers rights. He's been very careful.
Speaker 1: He has not asked for a lot. He's asked for
Speaker 1: some basic stuff, increases in pay. He's asked for some
Speaker 1: land back. But the banana companies can't abide this. And
Speaker 1: at this point in nine the banana companies are deeply,
Speaker 1: deeply involved in the United States government, so they have
Speaker 1: a lot of pole. At the time, United Fruit controlled
Speaker 1: fort of Guatemala's land, so our Ben's plans for a
Speaker 1: grarian reform were unacceptable. To the company. United Fruit launched
Speaker 1: a public relations campaign to convince the US government and
Speaker 1: the public that our Ben's was a communist and that
Speaker 1: Guatemala was a Soviet satellite state in the making, that
Speaker 1: commissioned so called studies on the situation, lobbied newspapers to
Speaker 1: convey their preferred narrative, and eventually put out a short
Speaker 1: film entitled why the Kremlin hates Bananas and Therefore the
Speaker 1: agents of international Communism have selected the United Fruit Company
Speaker 1: as a prime target of attack. Remember this was the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and the height of the Red Scare, and
Speaker 1: while Guatemalan President Urbans did have some Communists in his coalition,
Speaker 1: there was no evidence that he himself was one, much
Speaker 1: less working in concert with the Soviets. His idol was
Speaker 1: said to be f d R, and many of his
Speaker 1: social reforms were patterned after the New Deal. Nonetheless, President
Speaker 1: Eisenhower was convinced that the R Ben's government posed a
Speaker 1: threat and authorized the CIA to oust him. A coup
Speaker 1: was put into motion using radio propaganda, bombing raids, and
Speaker 1: a small band of Guatemalan exiles and Central American mercenaries.
Speaker 1: This results in the brutal overthrow of the Guatemalan government
Speaker 1: and the chaos that comes after that. Once our bands
Speaker 1: is deposed, he's humiliated, he's stripped, naked, forced to flee
Speaker 1: to Mexico, and Guatemala never really recovers from that. For
Speaker 1: forty or fifty years. Meanwhile, on the home front, United
Speaker 1: Fruit continued to win hearts and minds, providing books and
Speaker 1: pamphlets to schools on the value of bananas you might
Speaker 1: call it banana Ganda, and making movies like Journey to
Speaker 1: Banana Land. Today, fast white steamships travel across the Caribbean
Speaker 1: with cargoes more valuable than pirates. Gold officers and trim
Speaker 1: white uniforms pick up their golden cargoes from a place
Speaker 1: we called Banana Lam. The film goes inside Central American
Speaker 1: countries where everyone is hard at work but also happy,
Speaker 1: of course, as bananas are harvested. As the plant bends,
Speaker 1: the bunch comes down on the shoulder of another man
Speaker 1: who has called a backer. Each bunch ways from fifte
Speaker 1: seventy five palms. The United Fruit wanted people to buy
Speaker 1: their bananas and their bananas only, and a few years
Speaker 1: earlier had come up with a way to get brand
Speaker 1: recognition in the form of a certain cartoon character with
Speaker 1: a memorable tingle. I'm Takita Banana, and I've come to
Speaker 1: say bananas have to ripen in a certain way, and
Speaker 1: when they click with brown and have a golden hue,
Speaker 1: bananas tastes the best and not the best for you.
Speaker 1: Animated spokes banana, Miss Chiquita was an instant hit. Anyway
Speaker 1: you want to eat them, it's impossible to beat them.
Speaker 1: But banana is like the climate of a very very
Speaker 1: tropical equador. So you should never put bananas in the
Speaker 1: refriger on sidebar. With all due respect to Miss Chiquita,
Speaker 1: her parent company now notes it is okay to put
Speaker 1: bananas in the refrigerator after they've ripened. It'll keep them
Speaker 1: fresh just a little longer. The animated banana with a
Speaker 1: bowl of fruit on her head was modeled after a
Speaker 1: movie star, Carmen Miranda, known as the Brazilian Bombshell, who
Speaker 1: had shimmied and sombered her way to box office gold
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, at one point becoming the highest
Speaker 1: paid actress in Hollywood. Are you at there? Why does
Speaker 1: everybody look at me? And then begin to talk about
Speaker 1: the Pristmas three, I hope. That means that everyone he's
Speaker 1: glad to see the Lady and the two footi head.
Speaker 1: Carmen Miranda played on the stereotype of the fiery, tempered
Speaker 1: and lustful Latin American woman, but her talent was undeniable.
Speaker 1: Her lady in the two d fruity hat number in
Speaker 1: the film, The Gang's All Here is a banana extravaganza
Speaker 1: as dancers wave giant bananas around. The New York Times
Speaker 1: review of the film did note that the dance numbers
Speaker 1: quote seemed to stem straight from Freud. They weren't wrong.
Speaker 1: Carmen Miranda was inextricably tied to the banana, as she
Speaker 1: would often remind but don't forget people. I think there
Speaker 1: was lots of money being made with bananas for Carmen Miranda,
Speaker 1: United Fruit and others, but time was running out for
Speaker 1: the groomy shell. Trouble had been brewing since the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds when bananas in Panama were infected by a
Speaker 1: fungus so it's named Panama disease. And this fung is
Speaker 1: not only destroys banana plantations very quickly, but thouls the
Speaker 1: soil in a way that the bananas cannot grow there
Speaker 1: pretty much ever again, and remember that banana biology lesson
Speaker 1: from earlier. The fact that each groomy shell banana was
Speaker 1: essentially a clone of every other groomy shell banana meant
Speaker 1: that if one banana were in danger, they all were.
Speaker 1: When Panama disease first hit, companies tried to outrun it,
Speaker 1: moving to different fields, starting over. But the disease was
Speaker 1: spreading fast and thousands of acres of land had to
Speaker 1: be abandoned. Its spread to Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras.
Speaker 1: So you have this insane situation. Demand is increasing, you
Speaker 1: need to keep prices low, but land is getting more
Speaker 1: difficult to find because of this disease. Finally, after decades
Speaker 1: of battling Panama disease, the banana companies had to face facts.
Speaker 1: The grow Michelle as a mass market banana was doomed.
Speaker 1: They needed to find another variety. Changing the whole industry
Speaker 1: to another banana, which is a huge logistical issue, becomes
Speaker 1: sort of the worst choice to the sort of hide bound,
Speaker 1: entrenched banana barons. They don't want to do younger. You wait,
Speaker 1: it's the only choice, right, right, And so it's doll
Speaker 1: that begins experimenting with a replacement for the grow michell
Speaker 1: um and experiments with a whole bunch of them, and
Speaker 1: Cavendish is one of them. The Cavendish began to replace
Speaker 1: the grow michell in the late nineteen fifties. Now, as
Speaker 1: I've made clear, I find the Cavendish to be a
Speaker 1: boring banana. If you heard our season one episode on
Speaker 1: sitcom Deaths and Disappearances, you may remember the story of
Speaker 1: the two Darren's from Bewitched, two actors in the same role,
Speaker 1: the second one far lesser memorable than the first. You
Speaker 1: know where this is going. The Cavendish is the second
Speaker 1: Darren of bananas. There I've said it. It's also smaller
Speaker 1: than the groomy shell, and it bruises more easily. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't as susceptible to Panama disease. Would Americans accept
Speaker 1: this new, lesser banana. There were concerns, but as Dan
Speaker 1: Capell says, they ultimately didn't matter. Maybe it's the beginning
Speaker 1: of the age of fast food. Maybe the American palette
Speaker 1: is not so sophisticated. The transition who went fairly smoothly.
Speaker 1: I think there were very few people who sort of
Speaker 1: saw this new banana and recognize it as a new banana,
Speaker 1: or even taste it and said, you know, this doesn't
Speaker 1: taste right, It's not as good as the other one.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen sixties the transition was complete. Big Banana
Speaker 1: sold their final groomy shells in In the years since,
Speaker 1: we've all come to tolerate, if not embrace, the caven dish.
Speaker 1: But the Cavendish itself is also in danger, vulnerable to
Speaker 1: a number of diseases. And it's entirely possible that, yes,
Speaker 1: we have no bananas, could become our reality if the
Speaker 1: cabin dish goes the way of the groomy shell. If
Speaker 1: you were to eulogize to groomy shell, what might you say?
Speaker 1: I would say, it's nice to eulogize the growmer shell,
Speaker 1: and it clearly deserves eulogizing. But are good bananas out there,
Speaker 1: other bananas that are even better. And the idea that
Speaker 1: we should just give up and just accept this mediocre
Speaker 1: banana um and lament the better banana that's lost does
Speaker 1: not have to be the future of the banana. We
Speaker 1: can get those great bananas. You're a banana optimist. I am.
Speaker 1: I am the ultimate Banana Optimists. We leave you now
Speaker 1: with Broadway superstar Andrea Shields singing the Chaqueta Banana song
Speaker 1: and Jack the Banana and I'm here to say, but
Speaker 1: banana on your series like this today you loveth the
Speaker 1: breakfast or at any time, no matter when you eat it,
Speaker 1: those bananas tastes fine. We're going to issue that as
Speaker 1: its own single. I hope you savored this Mobituary. May
Speaker 1: I ask you to please rate and review our podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
Speaker 1: you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Here. All
Speaker 1: new episodes of Mobituaries every Wednesday. Wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts and check out Mobituaries. Great Lives Worth Reliving the
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling book, now available in paperback
Speaker 1: and audiobook. It includes plenty of stories not in the podcast.
Speaker 1: This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Zoe Marcus. Our
Speaker 1: team of producers also includes Aaron Shrank, Wilcome Martinez Cacceto,
Speaker 1: and Me Morocca. It was edited by Moral Walls and
Speaker 1: engineered by Josh Hahn, with fact checking by Katherine Newhan.
Speaker 1: Our production company is me On Media. Our archival producer
Speaker 1: is Jamie Benson. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart.
Speaker 1: Indispensable support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gerveis, Alan Pang, Reggie Basil,
Speaker 1: and everyone at CBS News Radio. The Irrefutable Aaron Shrink
Speaker 1: is our senior producer. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve
Speaker 1: Raise's and Morocco. The series is created by Yours truly
Speaker 1: and as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John
Speaker 1: carp for helping breathe life into Mobituaries