Bananas Page 17
The wonderful thing about bananas was that they were legal. Large banana symbols were carried to the Easter Sunday 1967 Be-in in New York’s Central Park where the crowd chanted “Ba-nan-a! Ba-nan-a! Ba-nan-a!”83 United Fruit stickers from supermarket bananas became cool additions to school notebooks. T-shirts appeared with the blue United Fruit Company seal. The British pop singer Donovan’s song “Mellow Yellow” was a popular hit, and the record album cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico produced by Andy Warhol featured a green banana cut-out that peeled off to reveal a pink/orange fruit.
United Fruit took fright at this new image for its bananas and countered the psychedelic claims with an extensive testing program by the Federal Drug Administration and scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles and at New York University.84 Some chemists suggested that bananas contained serotonin, a neurochemical closely related to hallucinogenic chemicals, such as psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine, that might possibly trigger genuine physiological effects under combustion.85
It turned out that banana peel smoking was a joke, although many teenagers tried it. It got a wonderful reaction from the establishment who were hard put to try to regulate the possession of banana peels in the same way as marihuana and LSD. As the Village Voice pointed out, “What legislator would dare affix his name to the Banana Control Act of 1968?”86 The issue even found its way to Congress when Frank Thompson, a Democrat from New Jersey, humorously (?) proposed a banana-labeling act to halt what he termed an invasion of the fruit stand by a generation of thrill seekers. “From Bananas,” intoned Thompson, “it is a short but shocking step to other fruits. Today, the cry is ‘burn, banana, burn.’ Tomorrow we may face strawberry smoking, dried apricot inhaling, or prune puffing.”87
The banana as psychedelic symbol faded from the national scene with the decline of the hippie movement and the drug culture in the 1970s although it resurfaced in 1988 in “Smokin’ Banana Peels,” recorded by the Dead Milkmen. It was significant because it mocked the establishment so well in terms of international companies and charges of colonialism in Central America at the time of a colonial-style war in Vietnam.
The notion of a banana republic included images of warm, sunny, tropical islands, deserted beaches, bikini bathing suits, palm trees, and a slow-paced exotic way of life. Americans who went to work for the international banana companies lived better than they could have at home with the benefit of inexpensive servants, country clubs, and other company privileges. Expanding banana plantations into the jungle was an exciting idea to those who had never visited the tropics. Special clothes were necessary, different from those worn to work in most areas of the United States.
The cruises offered by United Fruit and the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company took American tourists to resort areas developed by the companies themselves. In the era before World War II when most Americans did not have paid vacations, the idea of taking a month off for a cruise was only a dream. Banana company plantations were the setting for many short stories in popular magazines, such as the Saturday Evening Post, that fueled these dreams with descriptions of jungles and beaches, desperate outlaws, and dangerous working conditions, coupled with beautiful, scantily clad women, romantic encounters, and easy living.
Carmen Miranda personified the exotic, romantic aspects of the tropics. She frequently wore outrageous headdresses complete with tropical fruit and flowers and danced sensuously in exotic costumes that bared her midriff. In 1995 a documentary of the life of Carmen Miranda, with the title “Bananas Is My Business,” was released in the United States. Although she had no connection with United Fruit or other companies, in the minds of most Americans she was closely connected with bananas through the image of Chiquita Banana.
In 1952 Butterick published a pattern for a Chiquita Banana costume in children’s and misses’ sizes: “Just follow the simplified pattern for the dress and hat, and you’ll have a costume that will set you dancing the mambo.”88 The advertisement included a United Fruit Company seal depicting Chiquita Banana copyright 1947. There was no bare midriff shown in the picture. The costume consisted of a long full skirt with a long sash, a scooped neck blouse with puffed short sleeves, and a broad brimmed hat that tilted up to hold imitation fruit or flowers. It bore little resemblance to Carmen Miranda’s costumes but it did look a bit like the Chiquita Banana advertising character. McCall’s published a Chiquita Banana dress and hat pattern in 1966 that was very popular for Halloween that year.89
Another iteration of the notion of romantic adventure in the tropics is the chain of stores in the United States named “Banana Republic” that sells cruise and vacation clothing. The stores are often decorated with a safari or jungle theme and have been highly successful. Most customers probably will not travel to a jungle for vacation but the clothes are popular for weekends in the wilds of Connecticut or Virginia. Other banana products that hold out a promise of romantic tropical adventure include inflatable bananas for the home swiming pool. A “tropical banana pool lounge” consisting of three five-foot-long banana fingers offered two extra-large drink holders.90 Many mail-order companies provide one-person banana boats, and floating, inflatable tropical islands complete with palm tree and giant banana to recline against.
Chiquita Banana Costume Pattern (McCall’s Pattern 101, n.d.).
Two people have become so interested in bananas in American culture that they have created banana museums, one in California, the other in Washington State. Ann Lovell of Auburn, Washington, has amassed nearly 3,000 items, including a banana-shaped, four-foot high, bass stringed instrument, banana cookbooks, movies, songs, salt and pepper shakers, clothing, jewelry, stuffed animals and dolls, and other banana-shaped objects.91 Her collection was featured on The Collectibles Show on the FX channel, July 11, 1995, and in the Fall 1996 issue of Collectibles.
Banana Hat and Frill Bag pattern (New York: Jensen Creation 3, Heirloom Needlework Guild, 1944).
The second museum is located in Altadena, California, and is curated by Ken Bannister. His collection is said to include 15,000 items categorized in five sections: hard, featuring such items as a glass banana; soft, including stuffed bananas, oven mitts, and leather banana coats to keep bananas warm in winter; food, including banana-flavored popcorn; clothing, including banana-shaped slippers and banana-print boxer shorts; and a library of banana books.92 In 1972 Bannister organized an international banana club with 8,000 members from 45 states and 13 countries. Members received a banana pin, bumper sticker, banana patch, membership card, and an invitation to an annual picnic in Arcadia, California. “Bananas keep people smiling,” says Bannister, 45. “Would you join a raisin club?”93
Banana-eating was not a habit acquired from the people of Central America or Africa. Banana consumption in the United States was a marketing success largely attributable to United Fruit Company. Americans have long been a fruit-loving people, and bananas have been incorporated into the national diet in combination with and in place of other seasonal fruit. Bananas are interchangeable with many other fruits on cereal and in desserts; they are simply cheaper and available all the time.
Other imported fruit such as the kiwi, star fruit, and mango remain expensive, seasonal, and generally available in limited quantities. They are also harder to eat. Bananas are easy to peel, sanitary, bland, and have no treacherous seeds or pits. The only drawback to bananas is that the fruit discolors quickly when exposed to the air.
At the turn of the century, bananas were incorporated into the daily lives of many Americans with unusual rapidity. Sidney Mintz suggests that “in any culture, these processes of assimilation are also ones of appropriation: the culture’s way of making new and unusual things part of itself.”94 As bananas were assimilated into the diet in the United States, they were also being appropriated as American. Banana drinks such as Melzo and recipes for cooked bananas with meatloaf were unsuccessful but banana splits, banana bread, and bananas in combination with other fruit or in more traditional fruit dessert
s continue to expand the market. Fulton, Kentucky, was able to claim to be the Banana Capital of the World and bananas have taken an undisputed place in the songs, jokes, and folklore of the United States.
It remains to be seen whether Americans will continue to incorporate bananas into their daily diet in additional ways. Plantains and other varieties of bananas are more common in urban supermarkets with the recent influx of Central American and African immigrants, and they appear on the menus of ethnic restaurants. Some Americans are beginning to examine the impact of their food choices on the people who grow the bananas, and the worldwide food network that is dominated by political and commercial interests. Banana-growing changed the landscape of Central America and the Caribbean, both in terms of ecological change from rain forest to plantation, and in terms of population shifts as thousands of workers recruited by the banana companies migrated from the islands in the Caribbean to the Central American mainland with and without their families. Today there is growing concern that the herbicides and pesticides used on the banana plantations are having an adverse affect on the people who work and live there, and may even be carried to the consumer. Organic bananas are now available in health food stores and banana imports are more carefully scrutinized for chemical residues. But most people in the United States do not think about or care where their food comes from as long as it is inexpensive and readily available. Bananas are funny, sexy, nutritious, and healthy, as “American” as apple pie and strawberry shortcake.
SONGS OF
BananaS
“A Bunch of Bananas”
Performed by Rosemary Clooney
“A Shoe with No Lace, Banana without a Skin”
Performed live by The Kinks; never recorded
“All the Nations Like Bananas”
Performed by Charlotte Diamond (1992)
“Ape Man”
Performed by The Kinks (1970)
“Apples and Bananas”
Performed by Connie Regan and Barbara Freeman
“Banana”
Performed by Joe King Carrasco (1987), Banda Bianco, Hot Pink Turtles, Grupo Mancotal, The Nelories
“Banana Banana”
Performed by King Kurt (1984)
“Banana Bobine”
Performed by The Rebels (1989)
“Banana Boat”
Performed by Harry Belafonte (1959), Joe Higgs (1960s), Stan Freberg (1960s), The Kinks
“Bananafishbone”
Performed by The Cure
“Banana in Your Fruit Basket”
Performed by Bo Carter (1931)
“Banana Jam”
Performed by Cabo Frio (1987)
“Banana Leaf”
Performed by Shonen Knife
“Banana Love”
Performed by The Bobs (1987)
“Banana Man”
Performed by Clifton Chenier
“Banana Man Blues”
Performed by Memphis Minnie (1934)
“Bananaphone”
Performed by Raffi (1994)
“Banana Republics” by Steve Goodman
Performed by Steve Goodman, The Boomtown Rats, Jimmy Buffett
“Banana Slug”
Performed by The Banana Slug Band
“Banana Split for My Baby”
Performed by Louis Prima
“Banana Split Republic” Performed by The False Prophets
“Bananas”
Performed by Louis Jordan (1955)
“Bananas in Pajamas”
Performed by B1 and B2
“Boiled Bananas and Carrots”
Performed by Peter Sellers
“Broadway Banana”
Performed by Linda Arnold (1991)
“Chiquita Banana”
Performed by the King Sisters (1946), Buddy Clark, Xavier Cugat (1950s), Mitch Miller (1950s)
“God’s Great Banana Skin”
Performed by Chris Rea (1993)
“Guabi Guabi”
Performed by George Sibandi
“Have a Banana”
Performed by Plum Tree (c. 1994)
“I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones” by Chris Yacich
Performed by The Hoosier Hot Shots (1940s), Parry Weeks and His Orchestra (1936)
“I Make My Money with Bananas”
Performed by Carmen Miranda
“I’m Chiquita Banana”
Radio advertisement (1950s)
“I’m Going Bananas”
Performed by Madonna (1990)
“I’ve Got Those Yes We Have No Bananas Blues,” words by Lew Brown, music by James F. Hanley and Robert King (1937)
Performed by Bailey’s Lucky Seven
“I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana”
Performed by The Happiness
Boys; Ted Waite (1926)
“Japanese Banana”
Performed by The Chipmunks
“Loving You Has Made Me Bananas”
Performed by Gary (or Guy) Marks (1970s)
“Mellow Yellow”
Performed by Donovan (1960s)
“Montana Banana”
Performed by David Newman (1991)
“My Brother Thinks He’s a Banana”
Performed by Barry Louis Polisar (1977)
“My Wife Left Town with a Banana”
Performed by Carlos Borzini Senior
“912 Greens”
Performed by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (c. 1967)
“Ode to the Banana King (Part I)”
Performed by Tori Amos
“One Banana, Two Banana”
Performed by The Banana Splits; The Dickies
“Phillips Goes Bananas”
Performed by Hound Dog Taylor (1982)
“Please Don’t Squeeza Da Banana”
Performed by Louis Prima
“Smoking Banana Peels”
Performed by The Dead Milkmen (1988)
“Sookie Sookie”
Performed by Don Covay; Steppenwolf
“Sweet Talking Man”
Performed by Ruth Wallis
“Talking Green Beret, New Super Yellow Hydraulic Banana Blues”
Performed by Jamie Brockett
“The Banana Song”
Performed by The Circle with a Smile (1993)
“The Name Game”
Performed by Shirley Ellis (1960s)
“There’s a Banana in the Woods over There”
Performed by The Love Children
“30,000 Lbs. of Bananas”
Performed by Harry Chapin (1970s)
“Two Ladies in the Shade of the Banana Tree”
Performed by Pearl Bailey
“Vendedor de Bananas”
Performed by Jorge Ben (1976)
“When Banana Skins Are Falling”
Performed by Slim Gaillard
“When Can I Have a Banana Again?”
Performed by Harry Roy and His Orchestra
“Why Are Bananas Picked Green?”
Performed by Tom Glazer and Paul (Mr. Imagination) Tripp
“Wurds”
Performed by George Carlin (1975)
“Yes! We Have No Bananas” by Frank Silver and Irving Cohen
Performed by Billy Jones (1923), Enoch Light and His Charleston City All Stars, Spike Jones and His City Slickers, Mitch Miller (1950s)
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Jennifer K. Ruark, “A Place at the Table,” Chronicle of Higher Education 45:44 (July 9, 1999), A17.
2. Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Elizabeth Seaton Books/Viking, 1985), 6.
3. Lucy Fitch Perkins, The Filipino Twins (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1923).
4. Jane Nickerson, “Bananas—Cooked,” New York Times Magazine (September 14, 1947), 42.
5. “Three Thousand Million Bananas a Year,” Review of Reviews, American 44 (July 1911), 99.
6. “The Banana You Know and Love May Be in Considerable Dange
r, Wall Street Journal (April 10, 1995), A13.
7. Stephanie Witt Sedgwick, “Yes! We Have Nice Bananas,” Washington Post (February 3, 1999), F2.
8. Lance Jungmeyer, “Eating Trends,” The Packer (December 2, 1996), 6A.
9. Bananas (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1956), 5.
10. B. Roueche, “The Humblest Fruit,” New Yorker 49 (October 1, 1973), 48.
1. INTRODUCING BANANAS
1. Norman C. Bezona, “Bananas for Southern Gardens,” Horticulture 41 (July 1963), 374.
2. John F. Mariani, The Dictionary of American Food and Drink (New Haven and New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1983), 24; Roueche, “The Humblest Fruit,” 44.
3. J. R. Magness, “Fruit of the Wise Men,” National Geographic Magazine 100 (September 1951), 358; Bananas (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1956), 3.
4. Roueche, “The Humblest Fruit,” 44; Mariani, The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, 24.
5. Bananas, 3; Magness, “Fruit of the Wise Men,” 358.
6. Angela M. Fraser, Ph.D., “Plantain,” in the National Food Safety Database, http://www.foodsafety.org/nc/nc1057.htm. This is part of “The Notebook of Food and Food Safety Information,” produced by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, revised in 1997.
7. “Bananas: Production in Latin America,” Americas 24 (May 1972 supplement), 21; Claire Shaver Haughton, Green Immigrants: The Plants That Transformed America (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), 31; Roueche, “The Humblest Fruit,” 4.
8. Exhibition label, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.
9. Magness, “Fruit of the Wise Men,” 358.
10. Marina Warner, No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 360.
11. “Cover This Month,” Natural History 55 (September 1946), 299.
12. Magness, “Fruit of the Wise Men,” 358; Shannon Brownlea, “The Best Banana Bred,” Atlantic 264 (September 1989), 28.
13. Brownlea, “The Best Banana Bred,” 28.
14. Janet McKenzie Hill, ed., A Short History of the Banana and a Few Recipes for Its Use (Boston: United Fruit, 1904), 4.