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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 2: show for those interested in the big and small moments

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Speaker 2: of history. I'm Gay Bluesiay, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 2: talking about the day when England got its first look

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Speaker 2: at the long, leathery berries that we now know as bananas.

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Speaker 2: The day was April tenth, sixteen thirty three. The banana

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Speaker 2: made its British debut in the window of a London apothecary.

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Speaker 2: Although the banana plant is commonly called a banana tree,

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Speaker 2: it's actually an herb because it has a succulent tree

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Speaker 2: stem instead of a wooden one. And while bananas are

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Speaker 2: indeed fruits, you might be surprised to hear that, scientifically speaking,

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Speaker 2: they're technically berries. That's because bananas develop from a flower

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Speaker 2: that has one ovary, and they consist of the same

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Speaker 2: three distinct layers as other berries, the outer skin, the

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Speaker 2: mushy middle, and the innermost part, where the seeds are stored.

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Speaker 2: The tropical fruit is believed to be one of the

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Speaker 2: oldest cultivated varieties in the world, and some scientists even

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Speaker 2: think it was the world's first fruit. It's thought to

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Speaker 2: have originated in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific sometime

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Speaker 2: between eight thousand to five thousand BC, and the first

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Speaker 2: written record of a banana appears in Buddhist texts dating

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Speaker 2: back to around six hundred BC. It took quite a

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Speaker 2: while for the yellow fruit to reach European shores, and

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Speaker 2: by the sixteenth century, most people in England had never

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Speaker 2: even heard of a banana, much less seen one. The

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Speaker 2: only exceptions were merchant sailors and botanists who had traveled abroad,

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Speaker 2: and even then they weren't always seeing the fruit in

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Speaker 2: its prime. For example, in fifteen ninety seven, English herbalist

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Speaker 2: John Girard published the country's first written description of the

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Speaker 2: banana in his popular botanical encyclopedia The herbal Or General

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Speaker 2: History of Plants. However, because Girard had only seen and

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Speaker 2: tasted bananas in a preserved, pickled state, he didn't form

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Speaker 2: a high opinion of them. Although he conceded that the

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Speaker 2: fruit was quote good for the heat of the breast, lungs,

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Speaker 2: and bladder, he went on to say that it yieldeth

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Speaker 2: but little nourishment, and hurteth the stomach if too much

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Speaker 2: of it be eaten. England would have to wait nearly

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Speaker 2: forty years to get a fair assessment of the fruit

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Speaker 2: in its non pickled form, but in sixteen thirty three

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Speaker 2: another herbalist, Thomas Johnson, finally delivered. Born in Selby, England,

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Speaker 2: in sixteen hundred, Johnson later settled in London, where he

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Speaker 2: put practiced as an apothecary in the snow Hill area

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Speaker 2: known today as Holburn. By sixteen twenty six, Johnson had

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Speaker 2: begun taking botanical expeditions throughout England and Wales. Together with

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Speaker 2: a dozen or so other amateur botanists, he would hike

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Speaker 2: through the countryside and along the coastline, collecting specimens as

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Speaker 2: they went. He eventually combined his interest in cataloging rare

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Speaker 2: and unusual plants with his practice as an apothecary. Johnson

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Speaker 2: would draw and describe the specimens he encountered, with special

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Speaker 2: attention paid to their medicinal qualities. This hobby led him

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Speaker 2: to undertake an ambitious project in the early sixteen thirties,

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Speaker 2: the editing and expansion of John Gerard's herbal Encyclopedia. Johnson's

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Speaker 2: addition would contain some eight hundred new species, as well

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Speaker 2: as updated entries for previously discovered plants and fruits, including

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Speaker 2: the banana. It's unclear when exactly Thomas Johnson first got

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Speaker 2: his hands on the exotic fruit, but we know that

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Speaker 2: he hung a bunch of them in his shop window

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Speaker 2: in Holburn on April tenth, sixteen thirty three. Passers by

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Speaker 2: were said to stop and marvel at the bizarre fruit,

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Speaker 2: but the same bunch was reported to still be hanging

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Speaker 2: there several weeks later, so it seems no one was

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Speaker 2: brave enough to actually try one. No one, that is,

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Speaker 2: but Thomas Johnson. His expanded entry on the banana in

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Speaker 2: The Herbal includes a detailed woodcut illustration of the fruit,

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Speaker 2: as well as a rather lyrical and much more positive

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Speaker 2: description of the same bunch he displayed in his shop.

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Speaker 2: Each of the fruits was not ripe, being green, he wrote,

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Speaker 2: Each of them was the bigness of a large bean,

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Speaker 2: some five inches long and an inch and a half

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Speaker 2: in breadth. The stalk is short and like one's little finger.

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Speaker 2: They hang with their heads down, but if you turn

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Speaker 2: them up they look like a boat. The husk is

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Speaker 2: easily removed. The pulp is white, soft and tender, and

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Speaker 2: ate somewhat like a musk melon. Johnson's single stem of

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Speaker 2: bananas is believed to have been imported from the then

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Speaker 2: recently colonized island of Bermuda. There was no refrigeration in

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Speaker 2: those days, though, so it's not clear how the fruit

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Speaker 2: managed to survive the trip and arrive in London in

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Speaker 2: a green, unripened state. One theory is that they were

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Speaker 2: actually plantains, the banana's starchier, less sweet cousin. Plantains can

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Speaker 2: take longer to ripen than bananas because of their thicker peels,

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Speaker 2: and at the time Johnson bought them, there wasn't much

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Speaker 2: distinction between the two in the West. It's worth noting

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Speaker 2: that in nineteen ninety nine, an archaeological discovery casts some

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Speaker 2: doubt on Johnson's role as the first British purveyor of bananas.

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Speaker 2: During the ex excavation of a garbage pit in London,

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Speaker 2: an intact banana skin was found in a layer dating

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Speaker 2: back to the year fifteen hundred that would pre date

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Speaker 2: Johnson's bananas by nearly one hundred and fifty years, suggesting

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Speaker 2: that at least one other brit was sourcing fresh bananas

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Speaker 2: before him. However, after that initial discovery, it came to

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Speaker 2: light that the rubbish pit had likely been dug into

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Speaker 2: in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, thereby contaminating the layer

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Speaker 2: in which the banana was found. That would mean that

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Speaker 2: Johnson's claim to fame is still intact, and it would

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Speaker 2: also explain why no one else in England had been

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Speaker 2: singing the bananas praises before him. Despite Johnson's early effort, though,

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Speaker 2: bananas remained a rarity in England until the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 2: when regular imports began from the Canary Islands. Even then,

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Speaker 2: the fruit was still viewed and priced as an exotic luxury,

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Speaker 2: not something to be enjoyed every day or even every year.

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Speaker 2: Part of the problem was that the banana is a

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Speaker 2: tropical plant which grows best in warm, sunny weather, something

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Speaker 2: that's often in short supply in England. That meant the

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Speaker 2: fruit had to be imported greatly, inflating its price and scarcity.

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Speaker 2: Luckily for British banana fans, the head gardener of the

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Speaker 2: Chatsworth Estate, John Paxton, was already on the case, working

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Speaker 2: to develop a strain of the fruit that might survive

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Speaker 2: in a British greenhouse. Paxton spent several years developing and

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Speaker 2: tending to his banana plant, and in eighteen thirty five

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Speaker 2: it finally bore fruit, earning him a special prize from

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Speaker 2: the Royal Horticultural Society. Paxton dubbed his invention the Cavendish,

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Speaker 2: after the family name of the owners of the Chatsworth estate.

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Speaker 2: It slowly gained popularity as a commercial cultagen, and today,

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Speaker 2: nearly two hundred years later, the Cavendish is the most

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Speaker 2: common banana variety in the world. England's take on the

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Speaker 2: tropical fruit became the top banana by accident or by calamity,

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Speaker 2: to be more precise. Prior to the nineteen fifties, it

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Speaker 2: was the Gross Michelle or Big mic variety that dominated

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Speaker 2: the world supermarkets. It was the first variety of banana

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Speaker 2: to be cultivated on a large scale, and it had

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Speaker 2: started appearing in North American and European cities in the

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Speaker 2: late eighteen hundreds. During the nineteen forties, however, a virulent

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Speaker 2: fungal pathogen struck plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean,

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Speaker 2: halting production and nearly wiping out the strain. The Cavendish

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Speaker 2: took the Big Mike's place as the leading banana produced

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Speaker 2: for export markets, but by most accounts, it's a major

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Speaker 2: downgrade from the sweeter, creamier consistency of the Gross Michelle.

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Speaker 2: That said, the Cavendish still has plenty of fans in

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Speaker 2: the land of its birth. Bananas, typically rank is one

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Speaker 2: of the best selling items in British supermarkets, with more

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Speaker 2: than five million of them sold in the UK each year.

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Speaker 2: Just over a century ago, hardly anyone in England had

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Speaker 2: tasted or even seen a banana, so I guess they're

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Speaker 2: making up for lost time. And since the same Panama

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Speaker 2: disease that took down the Big mic will likely do

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Speaker 2: the same one.

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Speaker 1: Day to the Cavendish, it's a good idea to enjoy

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Speaker 1: them while they last. I'm gabeluesiay, and hopefully you now

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like to keep up with the show, you

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Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at TDI

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Speaker 1: HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: feel free to send them my way by writing to

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Speaker 1: this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in History. Class