[HN Gopher] The search is on for banana ancestors
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The search is on for banana ancestors
Author : Hooke
Score : 40 points
Date : 2022-10-18 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| gnicholas wrote:
| Fun fact: artificial banana flavoring doesn't taste like modern
| bananas, but tastes more like varieties that used to be popular:
|
| > _So, when you're biting into a piece of banana Laffy Taffy,
| you're getting a taste of the bananas of the past. "That's kind
| of why I think of these older, 'cheap' artificial flavors as
| 'heirloom' artificial flavors," says Berenstein. "Because they're
| the simpler formulas that have been less modified by time."_
|
| from: https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/why-dont-banana-
| candi...
| tksiden wrote:
| That's kinda of mind blowing. It kinda explains why my grandpa
| always shot talks modern food.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| In short, the banana that preceded Cavendish was Gros Michel,
| which had different composition taste-wise. The earlier
| sweets/candies were based on the taste of those. Gros Michel
| suffered from diseases, stopped being the main cultivar and
| Cavendish took over with its different taste.
|
| (from memory anyway)
| gnicholas wrote:
| What does "That's not dead helpful" mean? Or is this an
| overeager autocorrect?
| zasdffaa wrote:
| I shouldn't have said it that way. Removed.
| manv1 wrote:
| Today's banana exists because its predecessor was wiped out.
|
| That "banana" flavored novocaine is what that banana used to
| taste like.
|
| There is apparently a disease stalking the current Cavendish
| strain, which is why finding a new commercial strain is becoming
| more urgent for the industry.
| keltor wrote:
| "Wiped out" is patently false. Gros Michel is pretty standard
| in Southeast Asia and still grows all over Central America.
|
| Cavendish is actually still fairly susceptible to Panama
| disease and the Cavendish grown in parts of SEA are being
| pretty handily wiped out.
|
| The real problem is the want to transport unripen bananas with
| thick skins to market and have them look ripe and unbruised.
| Bananas don't seem to want to breed pretty and thick skins.
| authpor wrote:
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| So we can continue having bananas to eat. All bananas we eat
| are clones of a limited variety of banana species. A disease
| that affects one Cavendish banana tree will eventually wipe out
| all Cavendish bananas because they have identical genes.
|
| Cloned plants are great for production for awhile but genetic
| diversity wins over time.
| authpor wrote:
| I am assuming they will use the banana ancestor to breed it
| with their clone, and sell it at cost to the banana,
| pocketing the difference as profit.
|
| then again, bananas will never pushback against footing the
| entire bill, so they'll probably get wiped out.
|
| why do you think they're having some trouble finding banana
| ancestors? how much banana is there left?
| jdmichal wrote:
| That's now how bananas work. Bananas are sterile hybrids;
| that's why they're cloned in the first place. Other plants
| are cloned for other reasons, typically because they don't
| grow true from seed.
|
| Luckily for us, banana plants grow like bromeliads. They
| flower and fruit then die. But not before sprouting several
| new stalks. So they're really easy to propagate by
| separating the new stalks once they get big enough.
|
| Someone else posted this excellent article on it:
|
| https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-
| of-...
| [deleted]
| standardly wrote:
| Banancestors
| stuckinhell wrote:
| This is slightly off topic but related. Bananas in Asia are
| amazing. I've was lucky enough to try a Blue Java banana, and
| imagine a vanilla ice cream banana.
| gumby wrote:
| Yeah, for the part of my childhood in SE Asia we had at least a
| half a dozen varieties. Lots of more interesting fruit than you
| can get in the US.
|
| Most notably is how terrible pineapples are in the US.
|
| And Cavendish bananas are essentially flavour-free.
| jdmichal wrote:
| We grow our own and are looking at a variety called "ice
| cream". I figured the name was exaggerated, but now you have me
| second-guessing that...
|
| EDIT: Apparently they're in fact the same cultivar. The bananas
| start off blue and ripen to yellow.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| A fun article about this very situation:
|
| https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-of-...
| prettyStandard wrote:
| https://archive.ph/XQZmi
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