Origin and History of Banana

Origin and History of Banana
Bananas are believed to have originated primarily in Malaysia about 4,000 years ago, thence they spread over an area from India to the Philippines and New Guinea.

People probably used bananas for food long before recorded history. The armies of Alexander the Great found the bananas growing in India in 327 BC.

Arabian traders introduced the banana plant into Africa at a very early date since Portuguese explorers who discovered the Guinea Coast of Africa found bananas growing there in 1482 A.D.

Then, soon after the discovery of the New World explorers took bananas from Africa to tropical America. Thus, the banana plant traveled more than half way around the world to reach the areas of tropical America where, today, about two thirds of the world’s bananas are produced.

It was not until later part of the 19th century that bananas were brought into the United States in quantities for sale in stores.

Even then only those people who lived near seacoast cities where bananas schooners docked tasted or saw bananas.

Bananas are more perishable than some other fruits; so specialized, rapid transport needed to be developed before the use banana became widespread.

Producing bananas and getting them to market on temperature areas of the world stimulated the creation of large banana plantations.

The first big name on banana export business was the United Fruit Company, formed in 1899, which in 1970 merged into United Brands.

Standard Fruit and Steamship Company was established in 1923 as a competitor to the United Fruit Company. In the early days of banana industry, the large landholdings and one –crop economics made these multinational campaniles important influences in some Latin American countries.
Origin and History of Banana

Cavendish Banana

Cavendish Banana
Cavendish banana is common in the world banana trade. It is cultivars originating in Vietnam and China.

It becomes replacement for Gros Michel banana in the 1950s. Bananas first became widely popular in the 1800s, when railway companies started establishing plantations of Gros Michel or “Big Michael” bananas along their tracks.

These bananas could be easily transported once they were ripe, generating double profits for the railway by allowing the company to charge for passengers and freight, and to transport a costly exotic food on the same train.

By the 1920s, however, a problem was starting to develop with the Big Michael cultivar; the bananas were susceptible to Panama Disease, a fungus which attacks and kills banana plants. In the 1950s, it was clear that this cultivar was in trouble, and the Cavendish banana was selected to replace it.

Cavendish banana plantations can be found in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia and the bulk of bananas on the shelves of Western supermarkets are Cavendish banana.

Cavendish banana range from approximately 15-25 c, in length and are used in baking, fruit salads, and to compliment foods.

The outer skin is partially green when sold in food markets and turns yellow when it ripens. When over-ripe, the skin will turn black and the flesh becomes mushy.

Bananas ripen naturally and are at their peak ripeness when the peel is all yellow with a few dark brown specks beginning to appear.

The Cavendish is quite possibly the world’s perfect food. They are nutritious and convenient, there are cheap and consistently available.

Americans eat more bananas than any other kind of fresh fruit, averaging about 26.2 pounds of them per year, per person.

It also turn out that 100 billion Cavendish bananas consumed annually worldwide are perfect from a genetic standpoint, every single one a duplicate of every other.
Cavendish Banana