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.