Description:

Before 1880 most Americans had never seen a banana. By 1910 bananas were so common that streets were littered with their peels. Today Americans eat on average nearly seventy-five per year. More than a staple of the American diet, bananas have gained a secure place in the nation's culture and folklore. They have been recommended as the secret to longevity, the perfect food for infants, and the cure for warts, headaches, and stage fright. Essential to the cereal bowl and the pratfall, they remain a mainstay of jokes, songs, and wordplay even after a century of rapid change.

Covering every aspect of the banana in American culture, from its beginnings as luxury food to its reputation in the 1910s as the “poor man's” fruit to its role today as a healthy, easy-to-carry snack, Bananas provides an insightful look at a fruit with appeal.

From Publishers Weekly

"A study of the banana at first may appear frivolous," writes Jenkins (The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession). But "the use of everyday food can offer a window into the culture of the United States." Drawing from an unusual assemblage of evidence, Jenkins (a scholar-in-residence at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum) argues that Americans' ideas about the fruitAhow to store it, how to cook it, what it's good forAwere invented, over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, by advertisers and growers. And their campaigns worked like a charm: before 1880, most Americans hadn't even seen a banana; by 1910, they were consuming vast quantities of the fruit. How did this happen? Introduced to wealthy Americans in the second half of the 19th century as a delicacy, Jenkins argues, the banana was quickly seized upon by businessmen who understood that they could make a huge profit importing fruit. So they built large banana plantations in Central America and the Caribbean; soon, they had gained economic and political power in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico. Protected by American troops, U.S. corporations like United Fruit helped set up puppet dictatorships in countries wherever they had plantations (hence the term "banana republic"). Jenkins capably takes readers through this history, then describes how American businesses orchestrated popular demand for the fruitAby keeping the price low and waging a relentless advertising campaign that promoted the banana as delicious and healthful, either raw or cooked. Although the book includes a wealth of trivia on banana jokes, songs and recipes, it is really Jenkins's historical overview of the banana's production, marketing and transporting that makes this book a strong contribution to the growing field of food studies. B&w photos. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bananas is the latest in a line of social histories of different foodstuffs. Jenkins, a scholar-in-residence at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and author of The Lawn: An American Obsession, discusses the influence of bananas on American foreign policy, humor, and popular music (from Carmen Miranda to the Chiquita Banana Song). She does bring up some interesting points, e.g., that American banana companies were responsible for much of the infrastructure built in Central America and that the Banana Festival in Fulton, KY, was actually a weapon against communism. But Jenkins's study bogs down when she discusses the marketing strategies of the banana companies. Comprising the bulk of the book, this repetitious discussion makes more of the material than is warranted. If your library includes Mark Kurlansky's Cod (LJ 7/97), Betty Fussell's The Story of Corn (LJ 7/92), and Larry Zuckerman's Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World (Faber & Faber, 1998), this might be a worthy complement; otherwise, it is not essential.DTom Vincent, P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cty., NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.