A Short History of Your Banana

G'day, How much time do you spend thinking about your bananas?

Do you ever wonder why, especially in North America and Europe, there's only ever one type of banana in stores? It seems a bit strange given you'll have multiple options when it comes to apples, pears, and grapes. And even when we bring other tropical fruit into the conversation, it's not uncommon to see a few varieties of mango or pineapple. But bananas? Nope, you only get one.

In case you were wondering, this banana is called the Cavendish--after William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, who had this varietal brought to him from Mauritius in the 1830s and grew them in his greenhouse. Because what else are you going to do as an English Duke in the 1830s? How we got to the Cavendish dominating the banana market, is an interesting story and it involves a particularly nasty fungus called "Panama disease." Up until the 1950s, the world's favourite banana was called the Gros Michel (see picture below). Banana aficionados will tell you the Gros Michel tastes a bit better than the Cavendish, but not by much. You won't see it often out in stores, but it does tend to make an appearance during Lunar New Year festivities in Chinatown's around the world.

However, the Gros Michel's time as the king of bananas ended catastrophically when the Panama disease spread rapidly through banana plantations, attacking tree roots and restricting the water supply to the fruits. In a desperate search for a banana that could replace the Gros Michel, researches discovered the Cavendish, which proved to be resistant to the first two strains of Panama disease that had been wiping out bananas everywhere. The adoption of the Cavendish was so rapid and complete, that it almost entirely supplanted the Gros Michel as the world's favourite banana by the 1960s. And well, that's that: a short history of your banana.