SC - bananas

[Decker, Terry D.]

If your intent was sail to Cadiz and you wound up in the Thames estuary
because of storm, then the import is "accidental" and selling perishable
cargo a must.  Such a scenario would adequately explain the banana peel.

IIRC, the midden is fairly close to the Thames as part of the area contained
abandoned fish tanks.  At the time, London was a port city, so a banana
could have been delivered directly to the wharf.

In my opinion, bananas are not a fruit one would normally feed sailors
because they produce loose bowls.  However, they were imported into the
Canaries (and probably Madeira) as food for African slaves and it's possible
the banana represents an artifact of the Elizabethean slave trade, although
that is a little late in the game (1562+) for this site.

Bear

> But, how/why would you "accidentally" import a banana peel from the
> Canaries? And maybe more telling, how would a peel from a maybe rotten
> banana get from the ship to a midden somewhere inland? I would expect
> any such refuse to get pitched or swept overboard, not carried inland.
> Any idea how far this midden was from the ocean? Or maybe 
> more important
> in this case, from the Thames?
> 
> Stefan