[Sca-cooks] bananas

Terry Decker t.d.decker at att.net
Sun Jul 18 13:34:32 PDT 2010


> However, the Gros Michel was being wiped out by a pest, I think a root 
> fungus. One of the smaller banana companies found the Cavendish and 
> started exporting it. I don't think it was that much easier to ship. It 
> did have to be packaged differently to ship it. In cartons rather than in 
> bunches, I believe. At the time many people preferred the taste of the 
> Gros Michel, but with whole plantations and areas being wiped out, it 
> became more and more difficult, and expensive, to get sufficient numbers 
> of the Gros Michel to market. So the largest company got much smaller and 
> the smaller company became the biggest.
>
>
> Stefan


The Cavendish banana is named for  William Cavendish, 6th Duke of 
Devonshire.  He was a major horticulturist in the 19th Century and developed 
the Cavendish banana (from a collected plant out of SE Asia) into a 
commercial cultivar.  Since Cavendish died in 1858 and Panama diseaase 
didn't hit the banana crop until the 1950's, there is a good 100 year 
stretch of it being known and available

Bear 




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