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Comment by throwaway7645 | Hacker News Reader

The Cavendish that we eat today wasn't eaten in the 50's. Back then, you'd eat the Gros Michel. I think they were all wiped out so we swapped to the Cavendish some time ago. It is cyclical when we focus on one variety like that. Source: IEEE Spectrum article I recall from a long time ago ~2003?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana

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One fascinating aspect of this that I only learned recently is that the artificial "banana" flavor in candies mimics the flavor of Gros Michel bananas not Cavendishes, which is why it may seem a bit un-banana like to modern sensibilities.

Awesome factoid!

Interesting.

Also, I think banana flavor candy is gross so I think I will pass on trying Gros Michel.

Gros Michel bananas are still around.

They went from being THE banana for much of the western world to being extremely rare as in available on a few farms in Florida & Hawaii and Asia. I was inaccurate in saying they were all wiped out.

you can buy either the Gros Michel or a very similar variety in Chinatown and Flushing in NYC. And the local green markets have several other varieties as well. There are definitely other bananas around, most people just don't care that much.

awesome. have you seen these for sale anywhere?

Bogoya bananas are Gros Michel (aka Big Mike): http://www.promusa.org/Bogoya

Tropical Wholefoods (http://www.tropicalwholefoods.com) sell packets of dried ones in the UK.

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