World War I. In some places, the banana even became a luxury good. An Iraqi poet named Ali al-Masudiâwriting during the tenth centuryâincluded the fruit in his recipe for kataif , a confection made from almonds, honey, and bananas. (The sweet is still served today, though the formula doesnât commonly include bananas.)
This third type of banana is the one that was ultimately noticed, and actively consumed, by Europeans, who would eventually bring them to the African colonies they were establishingâGuinea and Senegal, on the Atlantic Coast, and the Canary Islandsâand ultimately (along with 20 million African slaves) across the Atlantic. The technical term for fruit from that third wave is IOC, or âIndian Ocean Complexâ bananas. We have a different name for them, one that the traders from the Middle East brought with them as the fruit moved from continent to continent. Linneaus borrowed an Arabic word, mauz , and adapted it as Musa , the taxonomic genus for the fruit. But to the average person, another Arabic word is more familiar and has become the better-used term for our favorite fruit. That word translates in English as âfinger.â The word is banan .
CHAPTER 8
Americas
B Y THE TIME THEY REACHED THEIR FINAL STOP, our hemisphere, the number of bananas making the round-the-world journey had narrowed. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century, and depending on which theory you subscribe to, the number of bananas that grew in all of what would become the Americas was noneâor one.
The chain of islands that stretches east from the tip of the Malay Peninsula ends 2,300 miles from the coast of South America. The banana of Rapa Nuiâwe call it Easter Islandâis the maika . Samoans and Hawaiians use similar words for the fruit. If that banana arrived on our continent, then it would contradict one of the most hardened bits of conventional thinking about the fruit: that it was first brought here by Europeans. It would mean our bananas, rather than coming from one place, arrivedâlike the winner of a long race in which every other runner has dropped outâin the same kinds of waves that carried the fruit around the rest of the world.
Thereâs no physical or fossil proof that the banana grew on the Pacific shores of either South or Central America before the years following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus. Without such evidence the case becomes circumstantial. But it is still strong. The argument, first posited by historian Robert Langdon, begins with what we know: Almost everywhere Polynesian sailors went, they brought bananas. So it is a reasonable assumption that if they came to this hemisphere, they brought the fruit along with them. Next would be to show that people from the Pacific arrived on American shores. In the 1970s, archaeologists found a cache of artifacts near Ecuadorâs BahÃa de Caráquez, which is today a popular beach resort a hundred miles north of Puerto BolÃvar, the countryâs busiest banana-shipping center. The objects, estimated to be more than one thousand years old, included pottery, figurines, and personal-care items. Not only were these unlike anything else found in South America, they were nearly identical to articles used in Asia at the same time.
Also interesting to note: If native tribes in that part of South America did grow bananas, thereâs no trace of it in current language. But those tribes do grow, even today, another crop that Polynesians are known to have carried. In the eastern Pacific, the word for sweet potatoes is kumara . Ecuadorâs Quechua Indians call the root crop cumar .
The word used today for the regionâs cooking bananas, plátano or plantain (the term has been adopted worldwide), is almost universally assumed to have originated in the Western hemisphere. Yet, while plátano is a Spanish word, it originally had nothing to do with fruit. It was used to describe
This third type of banana is the one that was ultimately noticed, and actively consumed, by Europeans, who would eventually bring them to the African colonies they were establishingâGuinea and Senegal, on the Atlantic Coast, and the Canary Islandsâand ultimately (along with 20 million African slaves) across the Atlantic. The technical term for fruit from that third wave is IOC, or âIndian Ocean Complexâ bananas. We have a different name for them, one that the traders from the Middle East brought with them as the fruit moved from continent to continent. Linneaus borrowed an Arabic word, mauz , and adapted it as Musa , the taxonomic genus for the fruit. But to the average person, another Arabic word is more familiar and has become the better-used term for our favorite fruit. That word translates in English as âfinger.â The word is banan .
CHAPTER 8
Americas
B Y THE TIME THEY REACHED THEIR FINAL STOP, our hemisphere, the number of bananas making the round-the-world journey had narrowed. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century, and depending on which theory you subscribe to, the number of bananas that grew in all of what would become the Americas was noneâor one.
The chain of islands that stretches east from the tip of the Malay Peninsula ends 2,300 miles from the coast of South America. The banana of Rapa Nuiâwe call it Easter Islandâis the maika . Samoans and Hawaiians use similar words for the fruit. If that banana arrived on our continent, then it would contradict one of the most hardened bits of conventional thinking about the fruit: that it was first brought here by Europeans. It would mean our bananas, rather than coming from one place, arrivedâlike the winner of a long race in which every other runner has dropped outâin the same kinds of waves that carried the fruit around the rest of the world.
Thereâs no physical or fossil proof that the banana grew on the Pacific shores of either South or Central America before the years following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus. Without such evidence the case becomes circumstantial. But it is still strong. The argument, first posited by historian Robert Langdon, begins with what we know: Almost everywhere Polynesian sailors went, they brought bananas. So it is a reasonable assumption that if they came to this hemisphere, they brought the fruit along with them. Next would be to show that people from the Pacific arrived on American shores. In the 1970s, archaeologists found a cache of artifacts near Ecuadorâs BahÃa de Caráquez, which is today a popular beach resort a hundred miles north of Puerto BolÃvar, the countryâs busiest banana-shipping center. The objects, estimated to be more than one thousand years old, included pottery, figurines, and personal-care items. Not only were these unlike anything else found in South America, they were nearly identical to articles used in Asia at the same time.
Also interesting to note: If native tribes in that part of South America did grow bananas, thereâs no trace of it in current language. But those tribes do grow, even today, another crop that Polynesians are known to have carried. In the eastern Pacific, the word for sweet potatoes is kumara . Ecuadorâs Quechua Indians call the root crop cumar .
The word used today for the regionâs cooking bananas, plátano or plantain (the term has been adopted worldwide), is almost universally assumed to have originated in the Western hemisphere. Yet, while plátano is a Spanish word, it originally had nothing to do with fruit. It was used to describe
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