There are more than 1k varieties of banana, and we eat one of them

theguardian.com

16 points·sea-gold··4 comments

When we're in Hawaii, I very happily eat the tasty little red bananas, which from a quick web search are probably Red Iholenas. Those frozen, with cherimoyas (a tropical fruit to die for) and Straus yogurt (made close to here in the San Francisco Bay Area but available on the islands) make the best smoothies I've ever had.

There are movement for heirloom tomatoes, heirloom beans (for example from Rancho Gordo)—why not heirloom or fancy bananas, too? There are apparently 1000+ potato varieties as well, few of which are eaten, especially outside South America.

Depends where you live. Here in Brisbane we get Lady Finger and (one kind of) Sugar banana, alongside Cavendish. There are places which have both plantain and gros michel but in very limited supply. Sugar banana is mainly backyard/amateur, Cavendish is totally banned for domestic growing.

There's another 15-20 varieties which Indonesia and other S.E. Asian communities live by, and I make a point of eating from the fruit stalls at markets when I visit Thailand and Vietnam. The differences are great. I wish we had them in Oz but mostly the problem is the skin: Like sugar banana they bruise if you look at them. Lady Finger are sufficiently robust then can stand the supply chain and respond well to Ethylene ripening.

I miss Gros Michel. They were just amazing. They're really hard to find, so in saying we have them in Brisbane it's like gold dust: really, we don't. If you go to the migrant suburbs there's a few.

> There are more than 1k varieties of banana, and we eat one of them

God bless the United Fruit Company and the CIA. /s

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