Speaker 1: Guess what will? What's that mango? So this is embarrassing
Speaker 1: to admit, but I had no idea. There was a
Speaker 1: giant exhibition in eighteen seventy six celebrating america Centennial. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had heard of the eighteen seventy six World's Fair,
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize it was also called the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Centennial Exposition. And for the little I've read about it,
Speaker 1: it sounds amazing. It does take a big man to
Speaker 1: admit that you had not heard of that. But but
Speaker 1: what do you mean, like, what was so amazing about it? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, the attendance was staggering, Like ten million
Speaker 1: people showed up and that was one fifth of the
Speaker 1: US population at the time. Wow, I had no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and there were tons of incredible things on display.
Speaker 1: So like the arm and torch for the future Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty was there, it was just out sitting on
Speaker 1: a long The first automatic dishwasher was there on display,
Speaker 1: along with like sewing machines and typewriters, a mechanical pencil
Speaker 1: for people to gak at. There was also this new
Speaker 1: fangled thing called hinz ketchup. You may have heard of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people could testify dunking pieces of sausage in it. But
Speaker 1: the two things that got the most type the telephone,
Speaker 1: as demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell, which people were in
Speaker 1: total of. I mean, this is a lot of amazing
Speaker 1: stuff in one place, all right. And so so what
Speaker 1: was the other thing? The banana? Of course, the banana. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so according to this amazing book Banana by Dan Copple,
Speaker 1: the fruit was unveiled as this healthy and cheap alternative
Speaker 1: to the apple. Before the bananas were the status symbol,
Speaker 1: almost like caviare, but all of a sudden they were
Speaker 1: being marketed to everyone. Actually, let let me read you
Speaker 1: a quote from one of the admirers there. To my
Speaker 1: young and impressionable mind, this was the most romantic of
Speaker 1: all the innumerable things I had seen that any of
Speaker 1: the vast buildings. It was the tangible, living and expressive
Speaker 1: symbol of the far distant and mysterious tropics. And to
Speaker 1: be clear, we're talking about a banana here, right. So
Speaker 1: that that was from Frederick Upham Adams. He was the
Speaker 1: inventor who would go on to streamline the locomotive, and
Speaker 1: of all those incredible inventions, it was the banana that
Speaker 1: captivated him and also the rest of America. But why
Speaker 1: are banana's cheap when they come from so far away?
Speaker 1: And how did fruit get so popular? And is the
Speaker 1: banana actually going extinct? That's what today's episode is all about.
Speaker 1: Why don't we dive in? Yea? Hey there, podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Parttime Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend man guest ticket, and
Speaker 1: sitting behind the soundproof glass boarding a banana rama sweatshirt
Speaker 1: is our pal and producer Tristan McNeil. My sweatshirt, Tristan, So,
Speaker 1: I know you've been wanting to talk about the banana
Speaker 1: and whether it's actually going extinct, you know, for a
Speaker 1: while now. But before we get into that, why don't
Speaker 1: we tackle a little outstanding business from our coal a
Speaker 1: Wars episode from last week. I guess it was right
Speaker 1: all right? Well, first off, we we wanted to have
Speaker 1: the Soda Jerks on for a quiz, but unfortunately it
Speaker 1: didn't work out because of timing. So we want to
Speaker 1: let you know about these guys. The Soda Jerks have
Speaker 1: a wonderful soda review site and they you know, taste
Speaker 1: and review all sorts of sodas from Crazy Delicious kinds,
Speaker 1: the one that tastes like ranch dressing. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: ranch soda review is so great. But when we realized
Speaker 1: we couldn't have them on, they told us, make sure
Speaker 1: you talk about Crystal Pepsi and how TAB tried to
Speaker 1: sabotage it. Actually hadn't heard the story before they mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but now we absolutely have to share it. Definitely. So
Speaker 1: when Crystal Pepsi came out, it was obviously making this
Speaker 1: huge splash, and Coke wanted to take the wind out
Speaker 1: of Pepsi's sales, but they didn't want to release a
Speaker 1: clear cooke because they thought that could be damaging for
Speaker 1: their coke brand. Yeah, that's right. So instead they did
Speaker 1: something super devious. Coke took the brand from their stable
Speaker 1: they knew wasn't popular, which was TAB, and they released
Speaker 1: a clear version to compete with Pepsi. It. Did you
Speaker 1: even remember clear TAB? I can't say that I didn't.
Speaker 1: And they didn't put that much effort to it, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how much they worked on the formula,
Speaker 1: but they didn't even put the product in a clear
Speaker 1: bottle to show that it was clear. They just put
Speaker 1: Tab clear on the can, and like, customers assumed that
Speaker 1: it was clear, right, And as the soda jerks pointed out,
Speaker 1: this was totally genius, like evil genius. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: and because Tab was a diet drink, people just assumed
Speaker 1: Crystal Pepsi was diet too, and it turned off a
Speaker 1: large percentage of the market. And years later, co insiders
Speaker 1: admitted that the effort was to kama kaze the brand.
Speaker 1: I mean that's their wording. They said, that's what the
Speaker 1: plan was all along. And basically they knew their Crystal
Speaker 1: Tab would fail, but they hoped it would take down
Speaker 1: Crystal Pepsi with it, and it did. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: funny bit of history from the Cola Wars that we
Speaker 1: totally would have missed. And you can find the soda
Speaker 1: jerks that the soda jerks dot net. And for those
Speaker 1: of you who wrote in with brands we should have mentioned,
Speaker 1: from Iron Brew to Doc Brown Cellarray, we promised we'll
Speaker 1: give them a taste and sneak those into future soda
Speaker 1: episodes down the line. Alright, so I guess we gotta
Speaker 1: get back to banana here. So Mango. I know this
Speaker 1: is on air, but I've got to say, I was
Speaker 1: watching you in the office this week and I saw
Speaker 1: you pick up a banana, look around, and then you
Speaker 1: quickly flipped it around and peeled it. But you weirdly
Speaker 1: look so embarrassed doing it. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: you were doing something sneaky that you weren't supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing. I know, because eating banana backwards feels so wrong.
Speaker 1: So for those of you don't know, and I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that's most of you, a few years ago I changed
Speaker 1: the way I peeled my bananas. Before I'd always just
Speaker 1: used the stem part as the pool tab, kind of
Speaker 1: a way everyone's trained. It's actually kind of a clunky
Speaker 1: way to do it because it never actually pulls easily.
Speaker 1: But then I saw this life act that if you
Speaker 1: just turned the banana upside down, not only does that
Speaker 1: stem become a convenient banana handle, but it's actually way
Speaker 1: easier to peel. Plus you don't get any of those
Speaker 1: annoying strands stuck to your banana, Like how much thought
Speaker 1: you'd put into this, but that actually that's how monkeys
Speaker 1: eat them, right, Yeah, So so for me that was
Speaker 1: the kicker, right, Like, when I read that, I was
Speaker 1: like humans, You idiots, Why don't you just eat the
Speaker 1: way monkeys have been doing it forever? Monkeys are so smart,
Speaker 1: smart type like monkeys, we should I know everything. But
Speaker 1: but then this week I read this article on Business
Speaker 1: Insider where Catherine Milton, who studies primate diets, went off. Here,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you this quote. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where the myth that monkeys eat bananas started. I personally
Speaker 1: suspect curious George, but it's time for it to stop.
Speaker 1: Wild monkeys don't eat them exclamation point. The whole wild
Speaker 1: monkey banana connection is a total fabrication. She sounds pretty
Speaker 1: ticked off. So but let me get this right. So
Speaker 1: monkeys don't eat bananas. No, they do eat bananas. Her
Speaker 1: point was just that monkeys only started eating bananas after
Speaker 1: humans cultivated them, and that bananas are actually too sugary
Speaker 1: for monkeys and can give them toothaches and diabetes. But
Speaker 1: when she was pressed on the topic, she gave my
Speaker 1: favorite quote in the article. Quote, of course monkeys and
Speaker 1: apes aren't stupid, they're relish eating bananas once they're exposed
Speaker 1: to them. All right, So, just to recap on this,
Speaker 1: wild monkeys don't eat bananas, but civilized monkeys who have
Speaker 1: been exposed to the finer things do eat bananas, but
Speaker 1: they shouldn't eat them because of diabetes. Yeah, bingo, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we've settled that. All right. So, I know
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to say about the banana. And
Speaker 1: obviously the big question we're asking today is our bananas
Speaker 1: going extinct. But what's kind of strange is that if
Speaker 1: that happens, this will actually be the second time a
Speaker 1: top banana has gone extinct. Yeah, so, so you're right.
Speaker 1: Basically the banana that everyone fell in love with from
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies until the mid nineteen hundreds, and that's
Speaker 1: the one that started the banana craze. It was called
Speaker 1: the Gross Michelle or for those of you who want
Speaker 1: English translation from the French, Big Mike. I never know
Speaker 1: that fairly Big Mike was not to be the perfect banana,
Speaker 1: and the flavor was completely different from what we know
Speaker 1: speaking of. I actually went to this pop up magazine
Speaker 1: show a while ago. Have you have you gone? I
Speaker 1: like how we've been in for like fifteen seconds and
Speaker 1: you're already on a tanta here. But no, I actually
Speaker 1: have not been to one but I know you've said
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty great. Yeah you should go. So for
Speaker 1: those of you don't know, Pop Up Magazine tours the
Speaker 1: country performing a live magazine curating like twelve or thirteen
Speaker 1: different writers to speak in a night, and they have
Speaker 1: this live orchestra that actually scores the stories, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they include shadow puppets or video or these scents. Three experiences,
Speaker 1: I honestly tell everyone about them. Yeah, but when I
Speaker 1: was at one in New York, they had a chef
Speaker 1: who handed out two types of marshmallows to the crowd,
Speaker 1: and as she talked about cinnamon in wartime, she had
Speaker 1: his taste one marshmallow and then the other, and it
Speaker 1: was crazy. So the first one was like a cinnamon
Speaker 1: sprig flavor you all know it was. It was pretty tasty.
Speaker 1: And then the second was the cinnamon that used to
Speaker 1: be available from Vietnam in the nineteen fifties but was
Speaker 1: discontinued in the US after the war started. It had
Speaker 1: this really like sweet and juicy and big red flavor.
Speaker 1: It was almost like two cartoonish to seem like a
Speaker 1: natural flavor, and you kind of realized cinnamon gum was
Speaker 1: meant to resemble the Saigon version of cinnamon, not the
Speaker 1: milder one we've grown accustomed to. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: the same with the banana. Like the gross Michelle was
Speaker 1: the sweeter, more custody, and really more delicious banana. It
Speaker 1: was actually so delicious that when there was a blight
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties and the crops started going extinct,
Speaker 1: banana companies assumed people would revolt if they switched banana
Speaker 1: styles on them, which is exactly what they eventually had
Speaker 1: to do. Well, And to be clear, Big Mike was
Speaker 1: just one of over I don't know, like a thousand
Speaker 1: banana species in the world, right, but but a number
Speaker 1: of them have seeds so hard they'd actually like break
Speaker 1: your teeth if you've been to them. So some are
Speaker 1: more like plantains and less sweet. Some are totally inedible.
Speaker 1: But the gross Michelle banana was considered like the perfect banana.
Speaker 1: It didn't often have seeds, it didn't bruise easily, so
Speaker 1: you could just pile them on a boat without boxes.
Speaker 1: Its flavor was never off like the bananas you get
Speaker 1: in the stores today. It grew year round, and it
Speaker 1: was hardy and resistant to most things. At least until
Speaker 1: this mysterious Panama disease started wiping it out in something
Speaker 1: like a decade. It basically took out all the gross
Speaker 1: Michelles with it, all right. And so just just to
Speaker 1: tie this up here, that the Caven Dish, which was
Speaker 1: the inferior banana both in taste and how it bruised,
Speaker 1: that was picked as the replacement, partially because it looked
Speaker 1: like the Big Mike, but also because it was resistant
Speaker 1: to this Panama disease. Is that right? Well? You know,
Speaker 1: I was looking up styles of bananas because reading about
Speaker 1: the Big Mike made me curious what other flavors you
Speaker 1: can get from a banana. And here are a few
Speaker 1: of the ones I really want to try. You know,
Speaker 1: I love lists of like strange fruit. So what's in
Speaker 1: your top three? All right, I'm just gonna read off
Speaker 1: my list here. So so first, the one that I
Speaker 1: really want to try is called the apple banana. It's
Speaker 1: actually so sweet. It sometimes called the candy apple banana.
Speaker 1: It's slightly pinkish and more juicy than a regular banana,
Speaker 1: and also sweet, and it doesn't really ever brown. And
Speaker 1: you can find this in Hawaii. It's so funny, like
Speaker 1: you say all these words like juicy and candy apple,
Speaker 1: and I actually can't imagine how good it is. But
Speaker 1: what I know is I really want to try one.
Speaker 1: I know, So what else you got? All right, there's
Speaker 1: something called the ice cream banana. Speaking ones that we
Speaker 1: should try. It almost sounds like I'm just making these up.
Speaker 1: This one is real. Also called the blue java banana.
Speaker 1: It's this strong plant that's hardy enough to survive monsoons,
Speaker 1: but it's also got a vanilla flavor to it, and
Speaker 1: the flesh is kind of pudding like, which I can't
Speaker 1: decide if that sounds delicious or gross, but but in fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of people actually eat this with a spoon. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I think I've seen monkeys eat those with a spoon,
Speaker 1: but not wild monkeys, definitely not wild monkeys. Well, a
Speaker 1: lot of people call it the tastiest banana. And then
Speaker 1: there's also the red banana, which is short and sticky
Speaker 1: and also really sweet, and I don't know, you get
Speaker 1: lost in all these banana descriptions that I almost want
Speaker 1: a banana kind of sort of walk me through each
Speaker 1: of these things. But the fact that the bananas that
Speaker 1: come to the States are cavendish makes you crave these
Speaker 1: so much more so I definitely want to talk more
Speaker 1: about the Cavendish and I feel like the way it's
Speaker 1: talked about in these books, it's almost like this mediocre,
Speaker 1: flavorless garbage fruit. But even mediocre bananas are good well,
Speaker 1: and Americans certainly do love them. I was reading this
Speaker 1: New York Times article on the Secret Life of the
Speaker 1: City Banana. So there are twenty million bananas distributed around
Speaker 1: New York City every week, every single week. That's eighty
Speaker 1: million a month and seven twenty million bananas a year.
Speaker 1: Like I did the map on that so quick, and
Speaker 1: that's just in New York City. That's crazy. But as
Speaker 1: much of America loves bananas, apparently India loves them even
Speaker 1: more so. According to a two thousand fifteen article in
Speaker 1: The Hindu, the country producest of the world's bananas, but
Speaker 1: basically exports none of it. Like their entire economies in
Speaker 1: Central and South America built exclusively on banana exports, and
Speaker 1: India turns down all of that money. They only send
Speaker 1: out one percent of their bananas and they hoard the
Speaker 1: rest for themselves. And i'mlike, in the US, you can
Speaker 1: find tons of varieties of bananas there, but that isn't
Speaker 1: the tangent I wanted to take you on. I wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you about the weirdest fact I learned this week,
Speaker 1: and that's that the forbidden fruit in the Bible might
Speaker 1: actually be a banana. I like how you have a
Speaker 1: tangent from a hand to it. All right, this does
Speaker 1: sound interesting, though, so so what do you mean by this?
Speaker 1: So couple is out this amazing argument that the banana
Speaker 1: might actually be what he took a bite out of,
Speaker 1: and he's got all sorts of evidence for it. So
Speaker 1: you start with the fact that the banana is, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this pretty suggestive looking fruit, and you can
Speaker 1: see what it might be thought of as racy or forbidden.
Speaker 1: And as you and I have both read before, the
Speaker 1: Bible never actually like specifically mentions what the fruit is,
Speaker 1: but it is described in the Koran, and their Copple
Speaker 1: says it's talked about as a tree whose quote fruits
Speaker 1: piled one above another in long extended shade, whose season
Speaker 1: is not limited, and whose supply will not be cut off.
Speaker 1: And you know, as any New Englander will tell you,
Speaker 1: there's a very clear apple season. But that description as
Speaker 1: Copple points out, really describes the bunches upon bunches of
Speaker 1: bananas growing multigenerationally and in continuous rings on the plant,
Speaker 1: and then he backs this up with talk of climate.
Speaker 1: So basically, when scientists looked at the description for the
Speaker 1: Garden of Eden and this idea of a place that's
Speaker 1: bound by four rivers, they were already thinking that two
Speaker 1: of the rivers with the tigers and the euphrates, but
Speaker 1: then they found evidence of two rivers that used to
Speaker 1: exist near them, and that land wasn't aspitable to apples.
Speaker 1: It's prime banana growing territory. That's pretty wild. And so
Speaker 1: are there other people who also believe this? Yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: there were a number of scholars whople leave this, including
Speaker 1: car Linnas you know he's that taxonomist. In fact, the
Speaker 1: scientific name he gave bananas was Musa paradisiaca, or wise
Speaker 1: fruit of paradise. And uh. Copple has one other bit
Speaker 1: of evidence. Apparently bananas used to be mistaken for figs
Speaker 1: before they were well known, maybe because they had seeds
Speaker 1: and we're stickier. But but Alexander the Great, when he
Speaker 1: tried to banana and in India, reportedly thought it was
Speaker 1: a fig and in Hebrew translations, Copple points out that
Speaker 1: the fruits, often translated as the fig of eve plus
Speaker 1: fig leaves make like a lot more sense as something
Speaker 1: that they could use to cover off their body when
Speaker 1: you realize they're banana leaves, something people actually used to
Speaker 1: use to cover up their bodies in history, right right, Well,
Speaker 1: you know the description of the bananas foal, it comes
Speaker 1: up a lot and I actually read that in Victorian
Speaker 1: times bananas were cut up and sold and foil and
Speaker 1: that was because the idea of buying or eating a
Speaker 1: banana hole would offend these you know, delicate Victorian sensibilities,
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny to read about. But you
Speaker 1: know what's so funny about this whole forbidden root thing
Speaker 1: is that the banana is basically a sexless plant. I mean,
Speaker 1: bananas are all clones of one another, grown from clippings
Speaker 1: and not seeds. It's how all cavendish tastes so uniform.
Speaker 1: But also while those big mics died off and they
Speaker 1: all have the exact same vulnerability. But beyond that, for
Speaker 1: all this talk about the male anatomy the fruit of
Speaker 1: the banana that we eat, it's actually the female part
Speaker 1: of the bananas anatomy. That's crazy, And I mean, the
Speaker 1: banana is all contradictions how so, so I was actually
Speaker 1: thinking about this earlier. But like almost everything good you
Speaker 1: say about it has an opposite. So, like the plant
Speaker 1: has devastated countries and economies, you think about banana republics
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it's also kept nations in Africa fed
Speaker 1: and out of wars. It's considered the perfect package fruit
Speaker 1: because it's portable and transports so well without getting the
Speaker 1: fruit itself dirty. But the peels were also easy to litter,
Speaker 1: and once up our time, they were considered the bane
Speaker 1: of society. It's sold for super cheap in the US,
Speaker 1: and it's almost considered this simple fruit of the people.
Speaker 1: But to get it here, tons of people are exploited it.
Speaker 1: And and also all these fancy technologies from the cold
Speaker 1: chain to railroads to radio systems, they all had to
Speaker 1: be innovated. Yeah, and there's a ton to cover there,
Speaker 1: and and I definitely want to start by how the
Speaker 1: banana got to the US. But quickly before we do,
Speaker 1: why don't we take a break, So mango, it's pretty
Speaker 1: rare that we have a guest that aligns so perfectly
Speaker 1: with the topic. But today we've got Ken Banister TV
Speaker 1: on the program. And now now Ken's the founder of
Speaker 1: the International Banana Club. Did you ever think you'd be
Speaker 1: speaking with the founder of the International Banana Club? And
Speaker 1: and in case you were wondering, the TV after his
Speaker 1: name stands for top Banana of course, Ken Banister. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. Thank you my pleasure. Hey, so, Ken, um,
Speaker 1: would you tell us a little about the International Banana
Speaker 1: Club and why do you decide to celebrate the banana
Speaker 1: in the first place. Well, this is a fun bunch.
Speaker 1: I started back in nineteen seventy two, and uh, it
Speaker 1: all came about as my secretarious husband, who was a
Speaker 1: Steve Adore unloading bananas in Long Beach, California, gave me
Speaker 1: a role of ten thousand banana stickers. So, as the
Speaker 1: president of a manufacturing firm making Reflectus all products, I
Speaker 1: took that roll of stickers to a trade show in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and started handing out banana stickers to people to affix
Speaker 1: to their I D badges, And I assured them that
Speaker 1: everybody would smile if they saw that banana sticker. One two,
Speaker 1: they would get a discount tree, it would improve their attitude,
Speaker 1: and it would remind them to stay in good health
Speaker 1: and consume one finger or one banana every morning. So
Speaker 1: what I did to get people excited motivated about the
Speaker 1: banana turned into a club. I had a card made
Speaker 1: and decided that I would offer b M's Banana merits
Speaker 1: and to degrees in Banana Street for sending things to
Speaker 1: do with banana is in good taste. Nothing with cruder
Speaker 1: lestibous would be accepted. So that's how the collection got started.
Speaker 1: This was clear back in nineteen seventy two. What kind
Speaker 1: of benefits do you get as a member of the club.
Speaker 1: And is it true that Ronald Reagan was a member? Well,
Speaker 1: yes he was. I I inducted him. His title was
Speaker 1: PB President Banana. Everybody gets the title of their choice.
Speaker 1: I told him he should probably select the PB, and
Speaker 1: he said, you know that's fine. Man. We've had lots
Speaker 1: of of celebrities playing this bunch over the years because
Speaker 1: of the purpose, which is to keep people smiling, their
Speaker 1: spirits up and give him a chance to get some recognition.
Speaker 1: That's pretty terrific. Now, what's the best response you've gotten
Speaker 1: from presenting your membership card to someone to get a discount. Well,
Speaker 1: the best response and for me, has been getting out
Speaker 1: of about six different speeding tickets by the California Highway Patrol.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidney. We get upgrades and hotels by simply
Speaker 1: showing the membership card and saying, well we we usually
Speaker 1: get an upgrade at no charge. But I held it
Speaker 1: up in the window as the police officer walked up
Speaker 1: and said driver's license and insurance proof, and I said, oh, officer,
Speaker 1: with a smile on my face, very enthusiastically, no tickets please.
Speaker 1: It's been Anta Club. I've had several dozen members report
Speaker 1: success in getting discounts at restaurants, special favors at hotels,
Speaker 1: and you name it. If you ask, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not afraid to ask, you'll you'll get something if
Speaker 1: you're pleasant about it. I love how all of these
Speaker 1: benefits have nothing to do with like getting more bananas.
Speaker 1: It's just that these are even better than that though.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. Now. You you were on the you
Speaker 1: were on the Tonight Show a few years back, and
Speaker 1: on the show you were showing some alternate uses for bananas.
Speaker 1: So can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes,
Speaker 1: every morning, I have one finger one banana, that's the
Speaker 1: term for one banana. And uh. Then I take the
Speaker 1: peel and I rub it across my teeth and it
Speaker 1: will if you know to do this on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: it will help whiten your teeth. Then uh, if I
Speaker 1: have any kind of a bite from an insect, I
Speaker 1: will rub the inside of the peel on that bite.
Speaker 1: It also serves as believe it or not, a treatment
Speaker 1: for your hair, your shoes. You can shine your shoes
Speaker 1: with the inside of the peel. And I take I
Speaker 1: take those banana peels in the morning and I plant
Speaker 1: those peels at the roots of the rose bushes. What's
Speaker 1: that do? Well, that's it serves. It's like fertilizer. You
Speaker 1: can't waste anything these days, you know. And you know
Speaker 1: they all come in the shape of a smile, those
Speaker 1: bright yellow, elongated edible fingers. They they're just I have
Speaker 1: I've been eaten one hand a week for over well. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm seventy eight years old, so I think I started
Speaker 1: eating bananas when I was about five or six. But
Speaker 1: isn't it funny that that banana role of banana stick
Speaker 1: has got us started and we've got an international club
Speaker 1: with over fifty five thousand card carrying members around the
Speaker 1: world's great and I must answer a hundred or more
Speaker 1: emails every day trying to keep people's spirits up, especially
Speaker 1: when things go wrong like this morning, and we have
Speaker 1: to keep smiling. We have to keep our spirits up,
Speaker 1: we have to be positive, and we have to support
Speaker 1: the team. And that's what the Banana Club is all about.
Speaker 1: So I did want to talk to us for a
Speaker 1: second about the International Banana Museum. It's actually in the
Speaker 1: Guinness Book of World Records for most items devoted to
Speaker 1: anyone fruit. And when I was online, I saw some
Speaker 1: really funny things. I saw this portrait of of a
Speaker 1: bride who was holding a bouquet of bananas. I saw
Speaker 1: the banana putter that that you've handed out to various
Speaker 1: celebrities like Bob Hope and stuff over the years. But
Speaker 1: what is your favorite thing in the International Banana Museum. Well,
Speaker 1: it was, and still is and will always be the
Speaker 1: petrified banana that a girl when I was giving a
Speaker 1: lecture back in Wisconsin raised her hands and ken bananas.
Speaker 1: I've got something for you. I've got a petrified banana
Speaker 1: that I found in my closet. It has been in
Speaker 1: her closet, I guess a year or so. And she
Speaker 1: I said, well, if you send that to me, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a hundred banana merrits and a degree and
Speaker 1: Dana Anistry a master's degree. And she did. And I
Speaker 1: had it on the wall of the museum for almost
Speaker 1: twenty five years. And it's in the shape of a smile.
Speaker 1: But it's certainly an old Gummer smile, dark dark brown
Speaker 1: and hard as a rock and mounted on in a frame.
Speaker 1: It's really something to see what people send. And of
Speaker 1: course if somebody sends something that's off color, I send
Speaker 1: it right back with de merits. We'll have to we'll
Speaker 1: have to come check out the museum sometime. But for
Speaker 1: all of our listeners, you can visit or join the
Speaker 1: International Banana Club online at International Banana Club dot com.
Speaker 1: But Ken Banister, Top Banana, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on Part Time Genius. You bet you my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Keep smiling. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're
Speaker 1: talking bananas and specifically how the bananas started migrating up
Speaker 1: to America. So about five or six years before they
Speaker 1: made their glorious debut in Philadelphia. This sea captain named
Speaker 1: Lorenzo dow Baker. He bought about a hundred sixty bunches
Speaker 1: of bananas back with him, almost on a lark, like
Speaker 1: he'd gone to South America ferrying gold miners down there.
Speaker 1: But when his when his boats started leaking, he realized
Speaker 1: he needed to make a pit stop, so he pulled
Speaker 1: into Jamaica where he fixed his boat, and for some
Speaker 1: reason he loaded it up with bananas, and if the
Speaker 1: wind hadn't been at his back, the fruit might have
Speaker 1: gone bad on the journey. But he made it back
Speaker 1: to New England in a quick eleven days, and he
Speaker 1: sold the fruit for two dollars a bunch, netting him
Speaker 1: about sixty dollars in today's money, and within a year
Speaker 1: he was the biggest exporter of bananas from the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: He even bought land in Jamaica where he started the
Speaker 1: world's first commercial banana company. Right, but you know, I
Speaker 1: remember reading that Baker was only so good at his job.
Speaker 1: I mean, bananas were good business, and there are accounts
Speaker 1: of his workers lighting cigars with five dollar bills and
Speaker 1: getting them into all sorts of trouble in the Jamaican Nights,
Speaker 1: but Baker was a seafair through and through, and along
Speaker 1: the way he teamed up with His most enthusiastic buyer
Speaker 1: was this gentleman named Andrew Preston, who had risen up
Speaker 1: the ranks from a janitor at a Boston grocery store,
Speaker 1: and when he first saw the bananas at the port,
Speaker 1: he immediately scooped them up to wholesale, and before long
Speaker 1: the two had taken on investors and started Boston Fruit,
Speaker 1: which three or four names later would be called Chakda.
Speaker 1: But Andrew was kind of a genius, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was definitely clever and very ambitious, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: taking any chances with his produce. Entire boatloads of the
Speaker 1: fruit could show up at the harbor rotting if winds
Speaker 1: were rough or if the trip, you know, took a
Speaker 1: few days too long. So he really invented the cold chain,
Speaker 1: which you know we talked about in our Inventions episode
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. But this was before air conditioning.
Speaker 1: So Preston cooled as bananas the old fashion way with
Speaker 1: giant blocks of ice, and he also ensured that bananas
Speaker 1: kept cool along the way in storerooms and refrigerated box
Speaker 1: cars every step of the process. As Copple puts it,
Speaker 1: ice became so essential to banana profitability that at least
Speaker 1: one banana merchant bought up every ice factory along the
Speaker 1: Gulf coast. Has reduced no middleman cooling costs, made his
Speaker 1: company the second biggest success story in the banana industry.
Speaker 1: That company was called Standard Fruit or what you might
Speaker 1: know now as Dull, and you can start to see
Speaker 1: why big Banana is referred to as al palpo or
Speaker 1: or the octopus. They started getting their tentacles into other
Speaker 1: businesses and owning the entire supply chain. One other small
Speaker 1: thing I read about Preston that I really liked, though,
Speaker 1: was that he painted his fleet all white to reflect
Speaker 1: the sun. I just thought it was so smart because
Speaker 1: you read about it now as this technique for keeping
Speaker 1: your house cool, but it's funny that it's been going
Speaker 1: on since the nineteen hundreds. And he also marketed the
Speaker 1: boats as cruise ships, where tourists could tag along for
Speaker 1: a fee on the ships to Jamaica, and if they
Speaker 1: were feeling too hot at any moment, they could open
Speaker 1: a vent and let the chilled banana air cool them. Down.
Speaker 1: Let's let's take a step back for a moment. It's
Speaker 1: actually an insane thing Preston and others were doing when
Speaker 1: you think about it, I mean they were essentially buying
Speaker 1: the super perishable item, transporting it thousands of miles, and
Speaker 1: selling it as cheap as possible. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: that could work. And Preston wanted to make the banana
Speaker 1: more popular than the apple, which sounds outrageous because the
Speaker 1: apple is clearly the most American of fruits. But he
Speaker 1: actually managed to do this. But the only way the
Speaker 1: economics of something like that can work is if you
Speaker 1: work on a really large scale. In by nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: one of the boats they were using, the six a Olah,
Speaker 1: was big enough to carry five hundred railroad cars full
Speaker 1: of banana. That's not the boat was half the size
Speaker 1: of the Titanic, and it was only one small part
Speaker 1: of Boston Fruits Great White Fleet. Actually, it's funny to
Speaker 1: see how much has changed and how much hasn't in
Speaker 1: the banana industry. So in that time spiece you were
Speaker 1: mentioning earlier, there's this super cute part where all these
Speaker 1: green bananas come to New Jersey and make a pit
Speaker 1: stop to ripen and the way it's described, it's almost
Speaker 1: like they're hanging out in tanning beds, just relaxing for
Speaker 1: three or four days before they have to complete their journey,
Speaker 1: and they're just focused on getting their glow on on.
Speaker 1: On one hand, the banana industry is just impressive. I mean,
Speaker 1: they came up with the tropical radio system so that
Speaker 1: boats were alerting the laborers of the exact moment their
Speaker 1: boats were arriving, so that fresh green bananas can meet
Speaker 1: them at the docks and get loaded up at the
Speaker 1: perfect moment possible. And everything was just syncd up so
Speaker 1: exactly like this is the early nineteen hundreds. And they
Speaker 1: were also incredible marketers. They put coupons and cereal boxes
Speaker 1: for free bananas that were somehow paid for by the
Speaker 1: serial company to make the meals healthier. But they invested
Speaker 1: in infrastructure to like railroads. Railroads were built across South
Speaker 1: and Central America purely for the protection and distribution of
Speaker 1: bananas and really not at all to help the people
Speaker 1: of those countries. But the model that banana companies established
Speaker 1: was ingenious, yeah, but also evil. I mean it's essentially
Speaker 1: the model for banana republics. So the banana company would
Speaker 1: come in offer to build a railroad with government's help.
Speaker 1: Then when government funding dried up, they'd offer to build
Speaker 1: the rest for free if they got a sweetheart deal
Speaker 1: of some sort, you know, the low taxes, free land,
Speaker 1: little oversight. And once they had their hooks in and
Speaker 1: needed the governments to bend on their whims, they'd install
Speaker 1: a new dictator. By the way, did you know, oh,
Speaker 1: Henry actually came up with the phrase banana republic. He
Speaker 1: wrote it in this short story while he was fleeing
Speaker 1: the law in Honduras, and that's amazing. So uh. But
Speaker 1: by the way, I know, I told you I didn't
Speaker 1: really want to talk too much about banana republics because
Speaker 1: they are interesting and actually deserve their own show. But
Speaker 1: I did want to talk a little bit about Jacobo R. Benz,
Speaker 1: who was elected freely in Guatemala in and I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about it because his story is just the
Speaker 1: most nakedly transparent of these stories. So for context, At
Speaker 1: the time, the big banana companies were hoarding land, and
Speaker 1: they secretly knew that this banana blight was coming in
Speaker 1: a big way and that they needed as much land
Speaker 1: to turn out as many viable bananas as possible, and
Speaker 1: as the blight came, their plan was simply to expand
Speaker 1: into new territories. But our bends hated the fact that
Speaker 1: the banana companies owned all this land, I mean, supposedly
Speaker 1: seventy of the nation's arable land, and they weren't using
Speaker 1: any of it all right, So so he just tried
Speaker 1: to take it back kind of. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: also negotiating for workers rights, which is what Boston Fruit
Speaker 1: was now called conceded too. But uh, but he also
Speaker 1: wanted this unused land for peasants, and he was willing
Speaker 1: to pay for it. He told United Fruit he gave
Speaker 1: them six dred thousand dollars, and when they laughed and
Speaker 1: asked where he got that sum from which they valued, uh,
Speaker 1: they valued the land closer to sixteen million dollars, he
Speaker 1: responded that he'd taken that estimate directly from the declared
Speaker 1: value they were paying on their taxes, like United Fruit
Speaker 1: had for year has been cheating on their taxes, and
Speaker 1: our bends in the government just you know, accepted those
Speaker 1: numbers at face value. But when our Ben's tried to
Speaker 1: take their land, United Fruits basically ruined him. The next
Speaker 1: terms and United Fruits negotiations were hand delivered by the U. S.
Speaker 1: State Department. I mean, this is a business dealing. Think
Speaker 1: about how crazy that is. And the company also funded
Speaker 1: journalistic research on Guatemala that showed our Ben's was a Communist,
Speaker 1: which he wasn't, but they circulated the report to eight
Speaker 1: hundred lawmakers and staffers in d C. And in the
Speaker 1: city plagued with rabid McCarthyism at the time. They spent
Speaker 1: a year convincing Congress our Ben's was the Soviet dupe.
Speaker 1: And they also circulated these horrible photos of our Ben's
Speaker 1: atrocities of corpses thrown into mass graves, which were actually
Speaker 1: photos of earthquake victims, but presented like there were casualties
Speaker 1: of our Ben's as rule. And the fingerprints on this
Speaker 1: are pretty damning. I mean, the U. S. Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: John Foster Dallas, was a partner and United Fruits law firm,
Speaker 1: and Dallas's brother was head of the CIA. The money
Speaker 1: and interest they were all super entangled. And once the
Speaker 1: congressional opinion was swayed and the banana companies had made
Speaker 1: their case, this is about ninety three. That's when Eisenhower
Speaker 1: authorized the CIA to get rid of our bends. And
Speaker 1: when our bands finally resigned, he was humiliated in front
Speaker 1: of the press. I mean he was stripped down to
Speaker 1: his underwear before being escorted onto a plane. And for
Speaker 1: the rest of this life, this man, who like tried
Speaker 1: to do good for his country was the stateless, depressed
Speaker 1: shell of a man who finally committed suicide. And also,
Speaker 1: we could get cheaper bananas. And that's just one horrifying
Speaker 1: story of El Palpo. There are dozens of them as
Speaker 1: it ravaged through various countries in Central America. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're right, this is definitely depressing. I know. Um,
Speaker 1: so I was thinking we should lighten the mood with
Speaker 1: some banana humor. So I know you did a little
Speaker 1: digging on why slipping on banana peels became such a
Speaker 1: comedy trope, Like you set the stage talking about our
Speaker 1: bends and they're like, tell some banana, all right, well
Speaker 1: let me all this up here. But but looking at this,
Speaker 1: so before it was a visual gag, the banana peel
Speaker 1: was was kind of a hazard. I mean, people just
Speaker 1: littered them everywhere in Virginia Scott Jenkins incredible book. It
Speaker 1: was called Bananas An American History. She talks about how
Speaker 1: kids at Sunday School were warned that a stray peel
Speaker 1: could lead to an innocent person getting injured, and how
Speaker 1: that injury could leave them in the poorhouse for life.
Speaker 1: The boy Scouts were told picking up a stray peel
Speaker 1: was a good act for the day. One scam artist,
Speaker 1: according to The New York Times, was arrested after she
Speaker 1: claimed she'd fallen seventeen different times on various banana peels,
Speaker 1: all in a span of like four years or something.
Speaker 1: But as the streets became cleaner, it found its way
Speaker 1: to vaudeville, and according to the a Vy Clubs, Sliding
Speaker 1: Billy Watson was the original. And now don't confuse sliding
Speaker 1: Billy Watson with Billy Beef trust Watson, who was a
Speaker 1: competing comedian at the time. So I also like what
Speaker 1: you were talking about, Charlie Chaplin. Oh yeah, the the
Speaker 1: gag was used by everyone, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, all
Speaker 1: the silent film stars. But there's this conversation where a
Speaker 1: film director asked, years later, how do you make the
Speaker 1: banana gag feel fresh, and he asked, Chaplin, do you
Speaker 1: show the banana first and then the lady or close
Speaker 1: up on the lady and then the banana and then
Speaker 1: have the slip, and Chaplain immediately said neither. You show
Speaker 1: the lady approach, then the banana peel, then the two together.
Speaker 1: Then you show the woman gingerly stepping over the peel
Speaker 1: and disappearing down a manhole. I know the company's doubted
Speaker 1: whether they could switch out the big mike and still
Speaker 1: have people buying bananas, but they pulled off an incredible transition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. We eat more bananas now than we ever
Speaker 1: did in the Gross Michelle days. But part of it
Speaker 1: is just that banana companies are excellent marketers. I mean,
Speaker 1: any group that could so underhandedly like pull off those
Speaker 1: coups us also have an incredible handle on traditional marketing
Speaker 1: and with things like you know, the Miss Jakeda campaigns,
Speaker 1: or how they got doctors to endorse bananas as a
Speaker 1: great baby food or whatever. I mean, they quietly up
Speaker 1: the demand. It's true, but I think we should get
Speaker 1: back to the original question, which was what's the state
Speaker 1: of the Cavendish today and is it going extinct? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: The truth is banana companies are worried. So while the
Speaker 1: Cavendish was resistant to the Panama disease that took out
Speaker 1: the Gross Michelle, that disease has other variations and Cavendish
Speaker 1: isn't holding up well against those. There's also this airborne
Speaker 1: virus called black cigatoca that requires a tons of pesticides
Speaker 1: and chemicals sprayed on the bananas. It really isn't good
Speaker 1: for the workers health. And there's really no such thing
Speaker 1: as an organic banana on the market today, but there
Speaker 1: is some hope. There are these amazing labs in Belgium
Speaker 1: and other places where they've been stockpiling cuttings and trying
Speaker 1: to graft together a stronger banana, and there's some ideas.
Speaker 1: Does this apple banana called goldfinger that doesn't brown at all,
Speaker 1: but it also isn't as sweet. It's this banana that
Speaker 1: sort of meets a lot of needs and it's hardy,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to see it as this pure replacement
Speaker 1: for the Caven Dish. Scientists have also decoded the banana's genome,
Speaker 1: which helps, but no one's confident that the Cavendish can
Speaker 1: be saved, and at the same time, no one's slowing
Speaker 1: down on eating bananas either. There's there's also this much
Speaker 1: sweeter banana that comes out of the Philippines that some
Speaker 1: scientists are hopeful about. It's way more fragile. But if
Speaker 1: the banana industry could switch from just piling gross michelles
Speaker 1: on boats to boxing bananas to transport the caven dish,
Speaker 1: maybe they can adapt to this Philippine and banana. It's
Speaker 1: it's a big question mark though, And and I want
Speaker 1: to end this on a happy note. So what's something
Speaker 1: you can tell me about the banana that's fun? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, for one, there's this great passage in Dan
Speaker 1: Copple's book about how the bananas used in Uganda, and
Speaker 1: he talks about how it's used this currency, I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes by farmers to pay back loans, and how there
Speaker 1: are songs sung about bananas, and and not in a
Speaker 1: kitchy way, but almost this epic history pull him kind
Speaker 1: of way. He mentions this Red Cross report that documented
Speaker 1: that if faminine war are connected, the fact that bananas
Speaker 1: are so plentiful in Uganda have helped the country avoid both.
Speaker 1: But here's the part that I really love, and it's
Speaker 1: it's how much the banana is part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Let me just read this passage from it says, um,
Speaker 1: there's a special breed of banana that's consumed when twins
Speaker 1: are born. Another type marks the passing of a relative.
Speaker 1: Families are guaranteed prosperity if the mother buries her after
Speaker 1: birth under a banana tree. There's a banana that, when eaton,
Speaker 1: helps return a straying spouse. One breed represents the lion
Speaker 1: and is said to improve male potency. And at the
Speaker 1: center of it all is matoki, the word that's used
Speaker 1: interchangeably for both food and banana. So for Uganda's nothing
Speaker 1: says welcome home more than this comfort food served on
Speaker 1: a banana leaf saucer. I love that. But you know
Speaker 1: what else I love the part time genius fact off?
Speaker 1: Is it already time? All right? Well, let's do it,
Speaker 1: m M So do you know that bananas will glow
Speaker 1: bright blue under a black light? They light up like
Speaker 1: fosse breasts and jellyfish, I mean, except their bananas. But
Speaker 1: the weird part is green bananas don't glow, only the
Speaker 1: yellow ones do. So I know you said Indians love
Speaker 1: their bananas, but per person, Uganda has them beat the
Speaker 1: country grows eleven million tons of fruit, which bears out
Speaker 1: to five hundred pounds per person annually. I mean this
Speaker 1: is according to Dan Copple's research, and he says that
Speaker 1: in remote villages where there's little else they eat, it
Speaker 1: can be up to nine hundred and seventy pounds per person.
Speaker 1: That's insane. So here's a quick one. Did you know
Speaker 1: that the strands in the banana are called the flow,
Speaker 1: him or flam. I'm clearly not good at pronouncing things. Now,
Speaker 1: you're really not all right. Here's something fun for people
Speaker 1: who love comics. The first Miss Chiquita was drawn by
Speaker 1: Dick Brown, who also created Hagar the Horrible cartoon, and
Speaker 1: when the character was revamped, it was done by Oscar Grilloh,
Speaker 1: who drew the pink panther. Here's a gross one. In
Speaker 1: uh in Bombay, a first time thiefs stole a gold
Speaker 1: chain and as he was chased and cornered by police,
Speaker 1: he swallowed it and to get it out of the system,
Speaker 1: they force fed him forty eight bananas. God, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they knew forty eight was the right number,
Speaker 1: but apparently it worked. It is my favorite number, but
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna eat that many bananas. But
Speaker 1: all right, this is kind of amazing. And it comes
Speaker 1: from Pittsburgh, which is also the supposed home of the
Speaker 1: banana split. But you know how ethlene is used to
Speaker 1: ripe in bananas, right, Well, it's also combustible, and according
Speaker 1: to The New York Times, a mishap with the gas
Speaker 1: caused the Pittsburgh Banana Company building to explode and rain
Speaker 1: bananas down on the city. Oh man, So I don't
Speaker 1: love explosions, but I do love that you said Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: Banana Company building. And I also love the idea of
Speaker 1: just like plucking bananas from the heavens. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it to you. But before we go, I I
Speaker 1: just want to give a special thanks to Nolan Brown,
Speaker 1: who helped with the research this week. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: should also give a shout out to Dan Copple's book Banana,
Speaker 1: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. And
Speaker 1: and before we go, what episodes. We've got a couple
Speaker 1: of great episodes coming up at the end of this week.
Speaker 1: We've got one that we've been working on on super Fans, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping we can cover a lot about the faneloes.
Speaker 1: Those are very Mantel fans, yeah, as well as Harry
Speaker 1: Potter big football fans. All kinds of fun stuff there.
Speaker 1: And then we've got another very different one coming up
Speaker 1: next week on how big is the U. S Military
Speaker 1: and how is the money spent there? So that should
Speaker 1: be really interesting to be awesome as well. But we
Speaker 1: love hearing from so many of you, don't forget. You
Speaker 1: can reach out to us part Time Genius at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com or on our seven fact hotline
Speaker 1: one eight four four pt Genius. We've heard from so
Speaker 1: many of you telling your friends about the show. Please
Speaker 1: keep doing that and if you get a chance, feel
Speaker 1: free to write us review on Apple Podcast. But thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Yea, thanks again for listening. Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
Speaker 1: wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
Speaker 1: important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
Speaker 1: and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
Speaker 1: the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is our lead researcher
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams, and even Jeff Cook gets the
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