One of my clearest primary school memories is singing ‘let’s all go down the strand, have a banana’ in a school concert and being the one to hand a banana to the head teacher! Googling I can see I didn’t dream it & it was even covered by Blur who sadly seem to have removed the reference to bananas! Anyway I have always associated The Strand with bananas (& always felt it should be yellow on monopoly!)
Gros Michel bananas were largely cultivated in South America, as opposed to the European origins of the Cavendish. It disappeared through disease and bad weather conditions the Cavendish was immune to.
There's still cranes in the vicinity of Horseferry Road as I pass them on the way to work. I feel I should warn them but not sure how many speak English. I thought of holding a banana up but not sure if that translates well!
What’s missing from this story is that the cultivar that has the very slippy skins was called Gros Michel - it was different from the modern Cavendish bananas. They have died out I think - although I read that the synthetic banana flavor you get in some sweets is actually based on Gros Michel.
“The fish that ate the whale” is a fascinating book about the banana industry.
It’s not entirely missing - I list it as one of the reasons the problem went away. I originally went into more detail about how they died out through disease and adverse weather, to which the Cavendish is more resilient, but I cut it because the story was already longer than I usually run.
Fair! I clearly became a bit of a banana nerd after reading that book, and the fact that “slipping on a banana skin” as a meme is basically a legacy from a time when bananas were different and there was no municipal street cleaning….well that’s just wild to me.
They were scarce for quite some time after the war too. I remember being offered a banana at the house of a friend from nursery school in about 1953 or 1954 and being very impressed by this luxury item.
My Aunt used to relate a tale from during the Second World War. She and my grandmother were travelling by train to Market Harbourer with two evacuee boys they were going to house from London. A US solidier joined their carriage and offered the boys bananas which they had never seen before. The first took a bite from his just as the train entered a tunnel and screamed at his mate 'Dont eat yours, its made me go blind' Not specifically to do with skins but thought it may be of interest
A culinary magazine from 1886, 'The Table', has a feature on Bananas. The founder of the magazine, Agnes Marshall, a pioneer in the world of cookery, loved bananas: she was very excited to report that a steamship company had put a cooling chamber in one of the vessels so that bananas could slowly ripen on the 18-20 day journey from Demerara and arrive in Covent Garden in prime condition. 'The owners..anticipate that ere long the banana will be the most popular and plentiful of fruits brought across the seas.' No mention of them being a slip hazard though…
This also helps explain the popularity of the 1923 song “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, which I learned in Ireland was played by all the marching bands from both Catholic and Protestant communities which came together in 1926 during the General Strike as everyone turned out for a huge procession and the bandsmen wanted one tune which they all knew and wouldn’t offend either community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas
Bananas are full of vitamins your body needs. Unfortunately the asphalt or concrete on the road / path can't absorb the inside it like our bodies can not can fences or places without soil. You can't grow a banana tree from its skin either. Where these left banana skins notes for Banana man?
Reminds me of my days as a science editor, when I got into a debate about whether a tomato is a vegetable or fruit. The consensus seemed to be that it was botanically a fruit, but classed as a vegetable for import duties - and so that was deemed most important.
The first sentence of George Meredith's 1891 novel One of Our Conquerors describes a man slipping on a banana peel on London Bridge, though you might not know it, given how Meredithian the sentence is: "A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly strip of slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which had more or less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, and now laid this one flat amid the shuffle of feet, peaceful for the moment as the uncomplaining who have gone to Sabrina beneath the tides."
That’s lovely prose in small doses, but I don’t think I could read a whole chapter without getting indigestion. Bananas would have been very intermittent in 1891, but when Borough Market took a delivery, I guess the surrounding streets would have been littered with skins.
One of my clearest primary school memories is singing ‘let’s all go down the strand, have a banana’ in a school concert and being the one to hand a banana to the head teacher! Googling I can see I didn’t dream it & it was even covered by Blur who sadly seem to have removed the reference to bananas! Anyway I have always associated The Strand with bananas (& always felt it should be yellow on monopoly!)
Gros Michel bananas were largely cultivated in South America, as opposed to the European origins of the Cavendish. It disappeared through disease and bad weather conditions the Cavendish was immune to.
Another fascinating story – many thanks. Worth mentioning that the Cavendish family's dukedom is of Devonshire, not Cavendish.
Thanks. And good catch. I've corrected that point.
There's still cranes in the vicinity of Horseferry Road as I pass them on the way to work. I feel I should warn them but not sure how many speak English. I thought of holding a banana up but not sure if that translates well!
What’s missing from this story is that the cultivar that has the very slippy skins was called Gros Michel - it was different from the modern Cavendish bananas. They have died out I think - although I read that the synthetic banana flavor you get in some sweets is actually based on Gros Michel.
“The fish that ate the whale” is a fascinating book about the banana industry.
It’s not entirely missing - I list it as one of the reasons the problem went away. I originally went into more detail about how they died out through disease and adverse weather, to which the Cavendish is more resilient, but I cut it because the story was already longer than I usually run.
Fair! I clearly became a bit of a banana nerd after reading that book, and the fact that “slipping on a banana skin” as a meme is basically a legacy from a time when bananas were different and there was no municipal street cleaning….well that’s just wild to me.
They were scarce for quite some time after the war too. I remember being offered a banana at the house of a friend from nursery school in about 1953 or 1954 and being very impressed by this luxury item.
My Aunt used to relate a tale from during the Second World War. She and my grandmother were travelling by train to Market Harbourer with two evacuee boys they were going to house from London. A US solidier joined their carriage and offered the boys bananas which they had never seen before. The first took a bite from his just as the train entered a tunnel and screamed at his mate 'Dont eat yours, its made me go blind' Not specifically to do with skins but thought it may be of interest
A culinary magazine from 1886, 'The Table', has a feature on Bananas. The founder of the magazine, Agnes Marshall, a pioneer in the world of cookery, loved bananas: she was very excited to report that a steamship company had put a cooling chamber in one of the vessels so that bananas could slowly ripen on the 18-20 day journey from Demerara and arrive in Covent Garden in prime condition. 'The owners..anticipate that ere long the banana will be the most popular and plentiful of fruits brought across the seas.' No mention of them being a slip hazard though…
This also helps explain the popularity of the 1923 song “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, which I learned in Ireland was played by all the marching bands from both Catholic and Protestant communities which came together in 1926 during the General Strike as everyone turned out for a huge procession and the bandsmen wanted one tune which they all knew and wouldn’t offend either community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas
A great piece! And I thought "peel tossers" was a way of describing early victorian tories.
Gives a whole new perspective on “comedy is tragedy plus time”. Revelatory and so enjoyable!
Bananas are full of vitamins your body needs. Unfortunately the asphalt or concrete on the road / path can't absorb the inside it like our bodies can not can fences or places without soil. You can't grow a banana tree from its skin either. Where these left banana skins notes for Banana man?
What a great article! The banana is actually a herb, distantly related to the ginger family. And now I've slipped down a google rabbit hole....https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-bananas#:~:text=Bananas%20are%20both%20a%20fruit,the%20seeds%20of%20the%20plant.
Reminds me of my days as a science editor, when I got into a debate about whether a tomato is a vegetable or fruit. The consensus seemed to be that it was botanically a fruit, but classed as a vegetable for import duties - and so that was deemed most important.
That sounds like the basis of another interesting article covering botanical classification and tax evasion :-D
I absolutely loved this and not only for the generous plug at the end. A very healthy reminder that
1) humans will constantly find new ways to injure themselves
2) solutions can be found
3) the news reporting that helps highlight a new trend and chivvy people between stages 1) and 2) will ultimately end up both forgotten and quaint
The first sentence of George Meredith's 1891 novel One of Our Conquerors describes a man slipping on a banana peel on London Bridge, though you might not know it, given how Meredithian the sentence is: "A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly strip of slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which had more or less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, and now laid this one flat amid the shuffle of feet, peaceful for the moment as the uncomplaining who have gone to Sabrina beneath the tides."
That’s lovely prose in small doses, but I don’t think I could read a whole chapter without getting indigestion. Bananas would have been very intermittent in 1891, but when Borough Market took a delivery, I guess the surrounding streets would have been littered with skins.
I'm not sure even that one sentence qualifies as a small dose.