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Thursday, January 24, 2008
Bananas Are Not the Only Fruit
In Three Random Facts About the Spanish, Notes from Spain's Ben Curtis says, Bananas must come from the Canary Islands. He adds, "And if they come from anywhere else, many a Spaniard will rather go banana-less until the next shipment comes in."
We're certainly glad to hear that the marketing is still working and hope that continues, because it is by no means a foregone conclusion.
You'd have to be very old to remember a time when the small, flavorful Canary Islands' bananas were the favorite in Britain too. Now they can't be found there and can't be exported outside of Spain and the Balearic Islands (though those exports were increased in 2007), as Lavengro in Spain tells us:
The Canaries are of course famous for bananas. We learnt in fact that Canarian bananas can't be exported (except to the Peninsula of course) because of EU regulations. We were told that they are too small, which they are; small they may be though but perfectly formed they are too, and it is not their curvature that is the problem. In fact I suspect that EU banana-growing (France grows them too in Guyana) is being phased out in favour of Caribbean ones to support underdeveloped countries. The Canarian industry is converting itself to mangos, papayas and so on.
In the 1870s Thomas Fyffe, a London food wholesaler, went into partnership with a fruit dealer named Hudson who had connections in the Canary Islands. In 1878 they shipped their first cargo of bananas to England. Within five years the business had become so successful that they purchased land in the Canaries to be cultivated as banana plantations. Then the WWI British maritime blockade of Europe destroyed the banana trade. Canarios voted with their feet and fled the poverty in droves for a new life in Latin America.
Gran Canaria info gives us more history of Bananas on the Canary Islands.
For now, if you want to taste one, you have to come to Spain.
Lavengro also reminds us that one of the grape varieties in the Canary Islands is called bastardo negro. He adds, "I don't suppose it is discussed widely on British TV wine programmes." We certainly wonder how that has managed to survive the political correctness police!
