Bananas are alive.
They breathe long after they are picked, taking in oxygen, expiring carbon dioxide.
As they ripen, bananas radiate warmth.
"The energy coming off a box of ripening bananas could heat a small apartment," a banana importer tells Nicola Twilley in "Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, our Planet and Ourselves," one of those relentlessly fascinating books that takes readers on a guided tour of something we've known about all our lives yet never thought to be curious about.
From colonial entrepreneurs sawing up ice on ponds and shipping it to Australia insulated in sawdust, to Chicago's own Gustavus Swift realizing it's a lot cheaper to ship steaks instead of steer, if only a way could be found to keep them cool, "Frostbite," published in 2024, is perfect February reading.
And in one of those delightful coincidences, I had just reached the lengthy section on bananas Monday when it was time to head over to Diana's Bananas, whose West Side plant keeps busy supplying our nation's hunger for frozen chocolate-covered bananas — on a stick, or sliced into 10mm "thick hockey pucks."
"The key why the brand works, is, it's quite simple in ingredients, but not simple in process," said Neil Cox, Diana's CEO. "The actual handling of fruit is quite challenging. Guess what? No two bananas are the same. Machines like to see uniformity. If it's not the same size and shape, a machine doesn't work that well. "
The main product has just three ingredients. The aforementioned tropical berry — bananas are not technically "fruit" — plus quality chocolate and the secret ingredient, peanut oil, that helps the chocolate shell not shatter and fall into your lap after you bite it.
Diana's Bananas grew from a booth at the Taste of Chicago run by Jeanine Gits-Carmody, whose family had a candy company, Aunt Diana’s Candy Makers. The product wasn't invented there; Affy Tapple made Frosty Bananas in the 1970s, and Newport Beach, California, had a stand in the 1940s. The product picked up a little street cred when a chocolate banana became a plot point during the second season of that saga of Chicago culinary stress, "The Bear."
Diana's bananas come exclusively from Ecuador. As if coping with the vagaries of banana physiognomy were not enough, Diana's "upcycles" its bananas, meaning rather than buy perfect bunches heading for supermarkets, it scoops up strays.
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Those are good.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm being a pedant, but bananas are indeed fruit! Berries are fruit and so are bananas (according to wikipedia for both "berry" and "banana").
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I love everything about bananas, taste, texture, convenience, cheapness, the miracle of human ingenuity that they are, but they also have a nostalgic value for me. As a kid in Belarus, we got bananas maybe once a year. I would know when they were delivered because I could see a lake of people mass around the produce store from the 8'th floor of our apartment building. That was the line. After the wait you'd get a bunch of really unripe, deep green exotic delicacy, which my mom would wrap in a blanket and stick the bundle in the wardrobe (no idea why, I guess it was supposed to be dark and there was no other place) for it to ripen. Then after a few interminable days, maybe a week, we'd try them.
After moving to the US, I must have gone at least a few years where I'd have a banana every single day, bringing to work for breakfast and having them at home on weekends.
Also, as a side note there was a crazy evangelist, Ray Comfort, who said that bananas are proof of God's existence, because of how perfect they are - delicious, nutritious, seedless, very conveniently wrapped, fitting perfectly into a human hand. Of course, every element there is a product of human intervention, especially lack of seeds, and he conveniently ignores other fruits that are just unwieldy (the pineapple must be from the devil!)
Anyway, thank you very much for a delightful start to my day!
Nice story, Mark.
DeleteThank you for this break from the tragedy that is the US government.
ReplyDeleteOur neighbor Seymour Sporkin was a chocolate covered banana fiend back in the mid 1960s. He always had chocolate covered bananas for kids on the block when we'd be over playing with Ricky and Dinny on a hot summer day. I can't think of chocolate covered bananas without thinking of Seymour Sporkin. Thank you Neil!
ReplyDeleteDuring one of the two summers L attended summer school in DeKalb, I lived in an old beater house behind a Clark gasoline station on Lincoln Hwy. Not only could I get snacks and cigarettes 24/7, just by crossing the yard, but if I also crossed the highway, I could buy frozen bananas from a Dairy Queen. Did that almost every day, for the entire summer. Back in '72, they sold for fifty cents apiece.
ReplyDeleteThe trick was to find one that was not rock-hard, in order to avoid breaking a tooth...and having to wait for them to thaw out a bit. The wait was excruciating...and in the meantime, the chocolate would sometimes slide off. Ah, the joys of youth.
There was also a DQ near my house until a few years ago.
But for some reason, their frozen bananas were not nearly as good.
Not like the ones back in DeKalb.
I know why they used to be better. I remember 1972. Well, some of it.
DeleteI was in DeKalb in '72, and I too know why they were better. What a time to be in in college and eating frozen bananas.
DeleteThings go better with Coke (capital C). But mostly, it was the weed. Did you ever go to a health food store called the Kishwaukee Valley Grainery, at Fifth and Lincoln ?
DeleteAfter eggs, bananas are nature’s best packaging design.
ReplyDeleteVery interessting. I am amazed and grateful whenever I go grocery shopping. Today, I can get more and better food than the richest man 100 years ago. Feta cheese from six different countries, lentils in every langauge, tinned fish from every sea.
ReplyDeleteAnd a story behind every item.
We always walked to the Affy Tapple factory on Clark for frozen bananas & nickel broken stick taffy apples. Especially after seeing a movie at the Adelphi Theater just a block away. The broken stick ones kept rising in price & after a while they got the machine that put the wooden stick into the apple correct & the sticks didn't break. But they were still at least half the price of any grocery at the factory.
ReplyDeleteMy grandma lived on Estes from '56 to '62, next to the "L" tracks. So that was where I went to the beach as a kid. Touhy Beach and Morse Beach both had brown wooden concession stands that sold a lot of Chicago-made products. Holloway bars, Milk Duds...and Affy Tapples. Root beer, too. Beach food!
DeleteMy grandma's corner was only a few blocks from the Affy Tapple factory on Clark. When the wind was right, you could smell the caramel cooking. YUM!
I feel the Bluths promoted the frozen banana way before The Bear did. “There’s always money in the banana stand!”
ReplyDeleteIndeed. A 45-second video with 3 clips featuring that phrase from "Arrested Development" that build to an impressive conclusion.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh3mwibfPkI
What a great show Arrested Development was! Thanks for the reminder. I have the whole season on DVD. I could use a laugh these days. The world has gone mad.
DeleteJudy
I had a friend whose son was on a baseball team at a university in Vermont. One day the coach asked why his best friend was so depressed. He explained that his friend's father was putting pressure on him to be a winner. The coach asked, "What does his father do?" The answer was that he was a banana salesman. The coach responded, "That doesn't make any sense. What does that have to do with pressure?" The answer was, "Coach, you don't understand. He sells all the bananas!" It turned out that his friend's father was a corporate executive at Chiquita. End of story.
ReplyDelete