Going Bananas: How a Tropical Treat Became the World’s Favorite Fruit

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In 1870, a strange fruit arrived on the docks in New Jersey, launching an industry that would change the world. That fruit was a banana, and, although it was a staple food in tropical regions, most Americans had never tried one. Today, a century and a half later, even the most depressing gas station, corner store, or hotel breakfast buffet in the land has bananas on offer. This week, we’re exploring the story of how humans transformed a tiny berry full of tooth-breaking seeds into the soft, yellow, suggestively-shaped fruits we know and love. Listen in now for the funny but tragic story that involves the invention of the cruise ship vacation, a Brazilian beauty and her iconic tutti-frutti hat, and the creation of the first "banana republic."

A bunch of Thai bananas. (Image credit: Dan Koeppel)

Episode Notes

Mauricio Diazgranados

Botanist Mauricio Diazgranados is the chief science officer and dean of science at the New York Botanical Garden.

Dan Koeppel

Writer and journalist Dan Koeppel is the author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.

A postcard advertising United Fruit's Great White Fleet, the first air-conditioned cruise ships, used to transport wealthy tourists to the Caribbean and bring bananas back. (Image credit: Fore River Shipyard Postcard Collection, Digital Commonwealth)
Loading bananas onto trains for the United Fruit Company in the 1920s. (Images credit: John Patrick Dannahy Collection of United Fruit Company Photographs, Baker Library, Harvard Business School)

Anthony Basil Rodriguez

Anthony Basil Rodriguez is an enthnobotanist and photographer. He is currently working on a book titled Bananas of the World, a first-look version of which is now available for pre-order.

Ben Brisbois

Ben Brisbois is an assistant professor at the University of Montreal's School of Public Health and is the author of the new book Banana Capital: Stories, Science, and Poison at the Equator.

A postcard from the 1890s, showing Victorian ladies eating bananas—an effort by the United Fruit Company to break the taboo on women consuming the suggestively shaped fruit. (Image credit: Dan Koeppel)

Amy Spellacy

Amy Spellacy is the assistant dean of advising at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she teaches the course "Bananas: An Interdisciplinary Case Study."

Over the years, companies promoting bananas have come up with some bizarre recipes to get people interested in them. For example: bananas prepared with currant jelly, curry sauce, and mint jelly, from “Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook." (Image credit: NYAM Center for History)

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics

This episode of Gastropod was supported by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics. Check out the other books, movies, shows, podcasts, and more that they support here.