Read Online The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen - Free Book Online
Authors: Rich Cohen
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of healthy competition. In other words, even its rivals existed so U.F. could prosper.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The company solidified its control by amassing the Great White Fleet, the ships that ruled the Caribbean. Within a decade, the fleetâeach vessel painted white to reflect the tropical sunâwas carrying not just bananas but also the mail and cargo of Central America. In the case of a strike or disagreement, the company could simply shut down the commerce of the region.
U.F. was in possession of just four ships at the time of incorporation, sailboats with auxiliary steam called fruiters. Preston replaced these tubs with a fleet of powerhouses: the Farragut , the Dewey , the Schley , the Sampson , âtwin-screw 280-footersâ with engines that drove a furious paceâHonduras to Boston in fourteen days; Honduras to New Orleans in five. What began as a summer business for Captain Baker became a twelve-month operation, with banana plants bearing every week of the year. The company introduced its first refrigerated vessel in 1903, a river freighter named Venus that had been refitted by a Canadian scientist with a primitive contraption of ice blocks, animal hair, air ducts, and fans. Told of this, Lee Christmas, drinking in the French Quarter, slammed his fist on the bar and said, âAinât it just like them gah-damned Yankees to commence by refrigeratinâ Venus ? So they take the Venus and pad her stern with cow hairs, and put fans and ice bins in her belly! Thatâs Boston, brother! Thatâs Boston!â
By 1910, United Fruit owned one of the largest private navies in the world: 115 ships that sailed under a flag designed by Prestonâs daughter Bessieâa white diamond bounded by blue and red triangles: the isthmus, the sun, the encroaching seas. The pride the company took in its fleet was captured in an old company mural: a native weighed down by a bushel of bananas, pushing aside a palm frond to reveal a ship at anchor in the bay, aglow with the light of civilization.
United Fruit bought vast tracts of jungle in these years, which were cleared and filled with buildings, turned into settlements of clapboard and steel. âItâs in Guatemala that one begins properly to appreciate the great civilizing influence of the United Fruit Company,â National Geographic reported in 1903.
By 1905, the banana trade was United Fruit. The company owned the most ships, planted the most fields, had the most money, and controlled both supply and demand: supply by planting more or less rhizomes, demand by increasing the market. Beginning around this time, U.F. stationed an agent at South Ferry terminal in New York, where the Ellis Island Ferry landed. Handing a banana to each immigrant who came off the boats, the agent said, âWelcome to America!â This was to associate the banana with the nation, a delicacy of the New World, though none of the bananas were grown in the United States, were in fact as foreign as the men and women coming off the boats. At the same time, U.F. began selling baby food made from bananas, which would hook customers when they were tiny. In 1920, the company introduced a hot banana drink meant to take the place of coffeeâit failed. There was banana flour and banana bread. In 1924, U.F. published a book of recipes meant to jack up sales, for example:
CORN FLAKES WITH BANANAS
Fill a cereal bowl half full of corn flakes, and cut one half of a ripe banana on top of this, and serve with heavy cream, and sugar if desired (though it will be found that for the average taste the banana supplies the necessary sugar element in a natural form).
Each of these efforts associated the banana with the beginningâof your life, of your day, of your career as an American. In this way, the banana, which had been exotic, was turned into a staple, the most familiar, necessary, obvious thing in the world. In this way, business boomed. By 1908, United Fruit was
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The company solidified its control by amassing the Great White Fleet, the ships that ruled the Caribbean. Within a decade, the fleetâeach vessel painted white to reflect the tropical sunâwas carrying not just bananas but also the mail and cargo of Central America. In the case of a strike or disagreement, the company could simply shut down the commerce of the region.
U.F. was in possession of just four ships at the time of incorporation, sailboats with auxiliary steam called fruiters. Preston replaced these tubs with a fleet of powerhouses: the Farragut , the Dewey , the Schley , the Sampson , âtwin-screw 280-footersâ with engines that drove a furious paceâHonduras to Boston in fourteen days; Honduras to New Orleans in five. What began as a summer business for Captain Baker became a twelve-month operation, with banana plants bearing every week of the year. The company introduced its first refrigerated vessel in 1903, a river freighter named Venus that had been refitted by a Canadian scientist with a primitive contraption of ice blocks, animal hair, air ducts, and fans. Told of this, Lee Christmas, drinking in the French Quarter, slammed his fist on the bar and said, âAinât it just like them gah-damned Yankees to commence by refrigeratinâ Venus ? So they take the Venus and pad her stern with cow hairs, and put fans and ice bins in her belly! Thatâs Boston, brother! Thatâs Boston!â
By 1910, United Fruit owned one of the largest private navies in the world: 115 ships that sailed under a flag designed by Prestonâs daughter Bessieâa white diamond bounded by blue and red triangles: the isthmus, the sun, the encroaching seas. The pride the company took in its fleet was captured in an old company mural: a native weighed down by a bushel of bananas, pushing aside a palm frond to reveal a ship at anchor in the bay, aglow with the light of civilization.
United Fruit bought vast tracts of jungle in these years, which were cleared and filled with buildings, turned into settlements of clapboard and steel. âItâs in Guatemala that one begins properly to appreciate the great civilizing influence of the United Fruit Company,â National Geographic reported in 1903.
By 1905, the banana trade was United Fruit. The company owned the most ships, planted the most fields, had the most money, and controlled both supply and demand: supply by planting more or less rhizomes, demand by increasing the market. Beginning around this time, U.F. stationed an agent at South Ferry terminal in New York, where the Ellis Island Ferry landed. Handing a banana to each immigrant who came off the boats, the agent said, âWelcome to America!â This was to associate the banana with the nation, a delicacy of the New World, though none of the bananas were grown in the United States, were in fact as foreign as the men and women coming off the boats. At the same time, U.F. began selling baby food made from bananas, which would hook customers when they were tiny. In 1920, the company introduced a hot banana drink meant to take the place of coffeeâit failed. There was banana flour and banana bread. In 1924, U.F. published a book of recipes meant to jack up sales, for example:
CORN FLAKES WITH BANANAS
Fill a cereal bowl half full of corn flakes, and cut one half of a ripe banana on top of this, and serve with heavy cream, and sugar if desired (though it will be found that for the average taste the banana supplies the necessary sugar element in a natural form).
Each of these efforts associated the banana with the beginningâof your life, of your day, of your career as an American. In this way, the banana, which had been exotic, was turned into a staple, the most familiar, necessary, obvious thing in the world. In this way, business boomed. By 1908, United Fruit was
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