See title, I’m curious just how different they tasted compared to the modern banana.
I’ve seen claims banana candy and artificial banana flavor is so different from real banana flavor because it was created to imitate the Cavendish.:dubious:
Actually, Cavendish bananas are the most widely exported banana and they make up a majority of the bananas sold in the grocery store. At least in the U.S., they’re the most common banana. I don’t know what other kind is considered the “modern” banana. At least when it comes to the ones you put in your cereal at breakfast.
DOH! You’re right and I got it backwards, I meant to ask if anyone has tasted a Gros Michel banana, Cavendish is the variety that replaced it around the 50s.
:smack:
Maybe Siam Sam knows. They’re grown in Thailand. They’d probably make a hell of a banana split.
I’m curious about the difference in flavor, but I doubt that it has much to do with the artifical flavor not tasting like real bananas. Artificial banana flavor is isoamyl acetate which, according to Wikipedia, does occur in natural bananas. It’s just one flavor compound, though, so that’s why it’s such a pale imitation of anything.
The story I’ve always heard about artificial flavors is that they’re simple, easy-to-make chemicals that were named after the thing they remind people of, not nuanced recipes intentionally emulating anything real.
Wouldn’t anyone over the age of about 60-65 have had Gros Michel bananas in their youth, considering that they were the dominant export banana until sometime in the 1950s? Do any of our more… experienced Dopers have any experiences like this?
Also… re: the fake banana flavoring & Gros Michel bananas:
I do know the banana I’d buy at a supermarket in Baltimore did not taste like one that I pick off the plant in my dad’s back yard, but that’s the case for just about every fruit fresh vs. shipped. Plus, the noncommercial bananas here in PR are a whole mishmash of different varietals so I can’t say for sure I know which ones I’ve tasted, only that yes, some are sweeter, less sweet, and I suppose “bananier” or “less bananish”. I am aware that part of the issue with the Cavendish as most people outside banana-growing regions know them is that they are not quite strongly flavorful to begin with, having been bred to travel and store well as a commercial export crop.
As with other synthetic “fruit” flavors, the artificial “banana” flavoring tastes to me more like they took some scent notes from overripe fruit.
When I was in Costa Rica we went into a little shop that had a bunch of bananas hanging. They were smaller than what we normally see in the states. I pulled one off and it was like the difference between a store bought tomato and a garden grown one. No idea what the variety was but it was delicious.
I don’t know if I’ve tried the Gros Michel, but I’ve had different varieties of banana and they do taste different from each other.
Here’s where I can plug my friends book on the subject…
Interesting article by Cecil about it.
I read your friend’s book! He says the Gros Michel was creamier.
If you are not enamored with the taste of the cavendish, have you tried the red banana?
Available at many grocery store chains. A little more expensive, but very tasty.
Note: the red banana isn’t fully ripe until it starts to turn black at the edges.
For my money, the best tasting bananas are the little Señorita bananas that we have in the Philippines. They are soft and creamy and like pure essence of banana. The Cavendish on the other hand is bland and mealy and about as far from tasting like a banana as you can get while still being a banana.
I’ve had a variety of bananas in S. America. I don’t know specifically which types, but I can tell you freshly picked ripe bananas are way better than anything I’ve ever had here in the US.
In The Fish That Ate the Whale Rich Cohen claims that the reason we had so many slipping on banana peel jokes in the old days was that the Gros Michel’s peels were oilier and literally much more slippery than those of the Cavendish. That’s more interesting than any difference in taste.
I was going to recommend a title change, but I think you’re being crafty. You’ll get all the pedantic Dopers in here to tell you you made a mistake, meaning they’ll read your thread.
I believed the part about the flavoring. Banana is the one flavoring where I don’t see what it has to do with the real thing. I can even understand grape if you get the right type of grape. But banana tastes nothing like bananas.
My daughter had something that was probably a Gros Michel when she was in Mozambique. She said it was sweeter than Cavendish.
I was wondering about that. I’ve deliberately stepped on banana peels to see how slippery they were and found that they really weren’t.
If you dry out bananas, they… well, they still don’t taste like artificial banana flavoring. But they do taste close enough to it to be recognizable.
The same is true of watermelon, which doesn’t even have any detectable flavor at all beyond “sweet” until you dry it.
What I wonder about, is I’ve had huckleberry pop, which was made with artificial flavoring. Just what, exactly, is the difference between artificial huckleberry flavoring and artificial blueberry flavoring?