Quite literally, this is a story that moved from being a spectacle… to becoming a staple.
History, sometimes, is just perspective.
The United Fruit Company (later the United Brands Company) was an American multinational corporation that traded primarily in bananas for the American and European markets. In fact the global banana business was controlled by a duopoly of United Brands (Chiquita) and Dole Fruit Company. In fact some countries got called banana republics – Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. Latin American scribes denounced the company in their literature for their interfering and questionable business practices:
The Fruit Company, Inc. reserved for itself the most succulent piece, the central coast of my own land, the delicate waist of America. It rechristened its territories ‘Banana Republics’, and over the sleeping dead, over the restless heroes who brought about the greatness, the liberty, and the flags, it established the comic opera: it abolished free will, gave out imperial crowns, encouraged envy, attracted the dictatorship of flies … flies sticky with submissive blood and marmalade, drunken flies that buzz over the tombs of the people, circus flies, wise flies expert at tyranny.
— Pablo Neruda, “La United Fruit Co.” (1950)
Fortunately none of our very own special varieties of bananas – Mara bale, Poo Bale and Nendra Bale have less savage backgrounds. Read on….
– CLN Newsdesk
A Day in History – Bananas — April 10, 1633
A humble fruit… once stopped London in its tracks.
On this day in 1633, in a small apothecary shop on Snow Hill, a botanist named Thomas Johnson hung up a curious object for sale — the first recorded bananas in England.
Not in bunches. Not in crates.
Displayed like a specimen.
Londoners gathered.
Because this… was something no one had seen before.
Imagine the moment
A long sea voyage from the tropics — likely Bermuda.
A strange green fruit, curved like nothing familiar.
No instructions. No precedent.
Do you eat the skin?
Is it sweet? Bitter? Medicinal?
Johnson described it cautiously — soft white flesh, vaguely like melon. Even that was guesswork.
Why it matters
This wasn’t about fruit.
It was about the world opening up.
The early threads of global trade tightening
Exotic goods moving from colonies to curiosity cabinets
Europe encountering new foods, one bewildering bite at a time
The banana arrived not as food… but as wonder.
The irony
It would take over 200 years before bananas became common in Britain.
Today?
It’s the most casually eaten fruit on earth
Sold by the billion
Given to children, gym-goers, office desks
No crowds. No curiosity. No mystery.
April 10, 1633 — London meets its first banana.
A fruit so strange it drew a crowd.
2026 — you don’t even think before peeling one
N. Kishore — Private Banker, JPMorgan Chase. Numbers by day, Narratives by Night. History buff and restless wanderer, mapping old empires onto new journeys.
Devoted husband, grandfather. Practitioner of tactical silence. Quiet fortitude in reserve.
Very interesting article by N Kishore
Kodagu’s bananas are reaching far and wide: Mara Bale heads to Palani for prasadam, while Nendra Bale travels to Kerala only to return as snacks. There is no match for Kodagu Poo Bale & Rasa Bale.. With deforestation driving elephants out of the forests in search of food, I fear we may soon face a banana shortage.
Interesting article thank God our poo bale and mara bale still exists though declining as. People prefer other varieties.
But when. We were kids it was plantains not bananas we spoke about or ate….our parents always said plantains not bananas.
What’s the difference??
Probably all of us are going Bananas.
The world has gone Bananas now, for no fault of the Banana!
Lovely piece. The banana has left behind a bloody trail in South America with the usual colonial exploitation story. But this time it was corporations who exploited it. But the fruit survived and has thrived.
And our thambuttu wouldn’t have existed!
This piece nicely captures how something as ordinary as a banana today once symbolized curiosity and global discovery. The 1633 moment in London, highlights how unfamiliar and even puzzling new foods were during the early days of expanding trade. The contrast between the banana as a “wonder” then and an everyday snack now, reminds us how quickly novelty can turn into normalcy. Overall, it’s a thoughtful reflection on changing perceptions and the quiet impact of globalization on daily life
A fascinating glimpse into how the ordinary once felt extraordinary. The image of a single banana drawing crowds in London reminds us how global exchange has transformed our everyday lives.
What we take for granted was once a marvel that stirred curiosity in wonder.
Credit to the author for unknowingly making the beginning of a quiet revolution in food History.
For the West, the banana has a story that imitates Julius Ceaser’s Vini, Vidi, Vici…
It came to England, people admired it in wonder, then it conquered their minds & appetites .
But for us in India, a tropical country too, it has always been with us from ritual offering to our myriads of God’s to also being a part of our myriads of curries.
This ubiquitous fruit is so popular with us that, if in case we wouldn’t find it in the market, we are sure to “go bananas”….
Very interesting Article