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| The 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790 -1858) |
Nearly every morning I eat a banana. We always have a cluster of bananas in our fruit bowl. Perhaps I am a banana addict. I need my fix every day.
The history of bananas is long and complicated. They originated in the Indomalayan region but there is evidence of bananas being grown in Africa and Arabia by the medieval period. Commercial plantations began to be established in the late nineteenth century and nearly all the bananas we consume today are derived from the Musa acuminata group - commonly referred to as Cavendish bananas.
Now the name "Cavendish" is very familiar in this part of the world for it is the family name of the Dukes of Devonshire who still own Chatsworh House in north Derbyshire, just nine miles from this keyboard. It was the Sixth Duke of Devonshire - William George Spencer Cavendish (1790 -1858) - who first cultivated Cavendish dessert bananas in his glass houses at Chatsworth. Their descendants can be found in vast plantations across the Carribbean and Central America but nowadays mostly in India and China which are by far the world's biggest banana producers.
Interestingly, it is thought that the term "banana" is of West African or Arabic origin - arriving in the English language via Portuguese or Spanish. You would have perhaps expected the name to have originated in the islands we now call Indonesia but that is not the case.
Though we are all very familiar with Cavendish bananas there are in fact a thousand different varieties of banana. Some are short and stubby, others are red or filled with small seeds. Others are large plantains that don't get very sweet and are used as the starchy element in main meals. They are very popular in Jamaican cuisine.
There is so much more that might be said about bananas - about their susceptibility to disease, about the different ways of cooking them, about their place in humour, about the slipperiness of their skins, about the nutrients they contain and about modern cultivation and transportation methods. But I will leave you today with one of my favourite sayings - when something seems impossible or ridiculous - "If you can get there by two o'clock then I'm a banana" or "If Manchester United beat Barcelona next week then I'm a banana" and so on. Apart from being great to eat, bananas are also endearingly silly.
The Malay word for banana is pisang. Not remotely like banana, eh?
ReplyDeleteBanana toasted sandwiches are rather good. Or bananas cooked in butter.
It is said that The 6th Duke of Devonshire liked to offer servant girls his Cavendish banana.
DeleteYes but did it have butter on it??
DeleteAfter that remark General Booth will be turning in his grave!
DeleteFunny, I'm eating a banana sliced onto my morning bowl of cereal right now. We eat lots of bananas in this house, too. Gregg's lunch every day is a banana or two.
ReplyDeleteIs Gregg a monkey?
DeleteQueenslanders are rather disparagingly referred to as "Banana Benders by the other states of Australia because it's where most bananas come from in Oz.
ReplyDeleteI thought that male Queenslanders were called shirt lifters in the other states.
DeleteNever heard that expression.
ReplyDeleteWe can grow bananas here in Florida. I have banana plants right outside my kitchen but they don't get enough sun and never fruit. The plants themselves make me happy though. They are pretty things. Have you ever seen banana blossoms? Very exotic and dramatic.
Yes. I have indeed seen banana blossoms. As for the saying, let's call it cultural exchange. You have licence to say to August, "If you can tie your shoelaces then I'm a banana!" or to Glen "If you can iron these shirts properly then I'm a banana!"
DeleteThey definitely have a long history in comedy, don't they? Do people really ever slip on banana peels? When I was a kid people used to say something or someone was "bananas" as a synonym for crazy -- I haven't heard that lately, though.
ReplyDeleteI've read that while Cavendish bananas are grown largely for their disease resistance, they actually aren't the most flavorful banana cultivar.
Long before I was born, one of my relatives was crippled after slipping on a banana skin carelessly tossed down on the pavement. Have a try yourself and see what I mean!
DeleteI eat a banana every day for my breakfast because I am lazy and it's easy just to peel it, eat is and there is no washing up.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can use the banana skin to clean your shoes...really!
DeleteFunny you should mention the mud wrestling, I have a bout this weekend. lol
DeleteWhat an educational post! Did you know that the cavendish banana is threatened by a disease that could wipe it out. I keep reading that bananas are going extinct but as you said there are many varieties and only some are threatened. I love them for breakfast as well.
ReplyDeleteYes. I did hear that the Cavendish banana is threatened. Genetically it is vulnerable because there is only one strain. Well, that's what I read anyway.
DeleteI'm going to start using that saying, which I have never heard until now.
ReplyDelete"If you can give only serious replies to your commenters for one full week, YP, then I'm a banana!!"
Ha! Ha! You got me Jenny!
DeleteBefore 1950 we did not see many bananas in the store and then they were quite brown and close to inedible. Transportation was just too slow.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't bananas Red! They were something else.
DeleteYears ago we visited some friends in Brazil & in their back garden, alongside the many exotic fruits we never see in our Greengrocers in this neck of the woods, they grew a half-dozen or more different varieties of banana. Each has their own flavour and culinary use. The fruit shops sold loads of varieties, too, and we couldn't resist buying the tiny ones no bigger than your thumb. When peeled, the banana was the size of a lolly!
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I hadn't realised you were so close to Chatsworth House! It a place I'd love to visit one day but in the meantime, they have an Instagram account that I like to follow and on the Sotheby's website right now, there's a series of 13 x 4-5 minute videos entitled 'The Treasures of Chatsworth' featuring marvellous glimpses into some of their art and collectables. There are interviews with the Laird and his family as well as a couple of living artists who were commissioned in recent times, and narrated by Downton Abbey's "Carson". It's a diverting way to spend a bit of screentime!
It is a shame that most of us only ever get to eat one variety of banana. As for Chatsworth, I often drive through its grounds and I have walked several paths that pass through the Chatsworth estate.
DeleteGo here for example Pip:-
https://beefgravy.blogspot.com/2015/09/chatsworth.html
Bananas are regulars on my daily menu. Each day I have a couple...and at times three. I love bananas....and they grow so well here in Queensland and in Northern New South Wales.
ReplyDeleteI understand that centuries ago coastal northern Australia had its own wild banana plants.
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