As A Kid,

back in the 1950s,

there was a popular song that we used to sing, Yes, We Have No Bananas, the above recording by Sam Lanin,

and this one by Billy Jones, here are the lyrics,

There’s a fruit store on our street,

it's run by a Greek.

And he keeps good things to eat

But you should hear him speak!

When you ask him anything, he never answers "no".

He just "yes"es you to death, and as he takes your dough

He tells you

"Yes, we have no bananas

We have-a no bananas today.

We've string beans, and onions

Cabbages, and scallions,

And all sorts of fruit and say

We have an old fashioned to-mah-to

A Long Island po-tah-to

But yes, we have no bananas.

We have no bananas today."

Business got so good for him that he wrote home today,

"Send me Pete and Nick and Jim; I need help right away."

When he got them in the store, there was fun, you bet.

Someone asked for "sparrow grass" and then the whole quartet

All answered

"Yes, we have no bananas

We have-a…

so why the song? 

apparently one-hundred years ago, if you lived in Europe or North America, you likely would’ve been peeling a variety known as the “Gros Michel.” Slightly flatter than our present-day bananas (the Cavendish), it was beloved for its thick skin and sweet taste. It was first taken by French naturalist Nicolas Baudin to the island of Martinique in the early 1800s, and soon it was being cultivated en mass in Central America. They thrived until the 1920s, when a little fungus called “Panama disease” started to wreak havoc. Hence, the 1922 record that I remember form the 1950s,

fortunately, a new banana variety that wasn’t susceptible to Fusarium replaced Gros Michel: the Cavendish banana. Cavendish quickly made a name for itself. Today, it accounts for 47% of bananas grown worldwide, and 99% of all bananas exported worldwide. Remember, all of these are genetically identical!

now, Cavendish, of course, has some weaknesses of its own. It is susceptible to another widespread fungus, called Black Sigatoka. In addition, farmers largely cultivate bananas in monoculture (i.e. one crop cultivated on the same plot year after year). This makes regular pesticide use a necessity: plantations need to be sprayed up to 50 times in one season!

history is repeating itself, with one major problem. There is no new variety that could replace Cavendish, as was the case with Gros Michel before. If we don’t find a solution, we, as consumers, will soon have to take notice of this threat, too, there are, in fact, over a thousand banana varieties worldwide. But they do not have the exact characteristics consumers, growers and companies are looking for in bananas. They might not taste as good, be susceptible to TR4 or other diseases, be difficult to transport over long distances or yield less, for the full run down here is the full article, all banana photographs from our day at one of the local growers fairs when we were in Thailand, reading the article it might be worth re-recording Yes, We have no bananas!