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Why Banana Candy Doesn't Taste Like Bananas - The Story of Big Mike Bananas · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Kelly, how are you?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, I'm doing great, man.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got all my stuff plugged in, my tech's working well, my keyboard and mouse and everything is functioning as it should.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Good, me too.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: With uh some some um duct tape and some um twine, I'm good.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have shirts.
• 0:34
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• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone out there is interested in a shirt, drop us a line.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Logo right here on it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: They look nice, they're high quality.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We we did you tell them the email address.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's not not at dirtnapcity.com.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a shirt, uh drop us a line.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you really want a shirt, be our Patreon supporter.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you're definitely gonna get a shirt.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want one and you don't want to be a Patreon supporter, then just convince us via email that why you should get a shirt.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: We need 500 words on why you don't want to be a Patreon.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we can tell if it was AI written.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So don't do that.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You write it yourself.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Old school.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd kind of like to see an AI version, 500 words of why they shouldn't be a Patreon subscriber.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: That might be funnier.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we'll take either.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, if you want a shirt, um ask us.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we'll see.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not at DirtNab City.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.com.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to talk about something we usually reserve dead ends for talking about things that aren't around anymore.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: They used to exist, but they're no longer here or not as popular.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that kind of um it's the closest thing you can get to time travel these days.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um let me ask you this way.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever have a banana candy?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: You ever have a candy like a laffy taffy or maybe an aluminator?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a banana jelly bean or a runt.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You ever have a runt?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, very few.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I know I'm familiar with them.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not a candy I have had much of or have much experience with, but I remember they're very hard.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like the kind of thing, they're like as hard as a Lego brick.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you stepped on it with a bare foot, it would hurt.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of suck on it, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I suppose.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: When you picture banana candy, though, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can picture what that tastes like, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, actually, I don't know where it was, but somewhere in Houston I used to get banana milkshakes.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they were there was a milkshake and it tasted like banana, and I was like that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm getting at is banana candies don't actually taste like bananas, do they?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of synthetic tasting, now that I think about it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder why a Jolly Rancher doesn't have a banana flavor.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, they're not synthetic at all.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: They have a really like a really robust flavor to them that tastes, and then a real banana is kind of a very mild version of that stronger banana flavor.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like uh coconut suntan spray sunscreen smells more like coconut than real coconuts.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're saying?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe, probably.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: But in fact, those those candies taste better than a real banana.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I said, a real banana is kind of really almost has a almost a real banana doesn't taste like you hope it tastes.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a little disappointing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um hold on.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right, all right.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh but banana candy tastes better than real bananas.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: My point is I'll take your word for it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you have a banana candy, you're actually time traveling.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what bananas used to taste like.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's banana memory that you're tasting, not actually.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Bananarama.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're talking about like the banana complex theory, right?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I don't even know what you're talking about.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Bananarama?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, I know that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is a banana complex theory?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It it has to do with the fact that you know everything is stuck in the 80s.
• 4:21
  unknown: No.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't explain it right now, it takes way too long, but just Google it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking about at all.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, sorry.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to say is banana candy, the flavor of banana candy, is what bananas actually used to taste like.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: But they don't taste like that anymore.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you run into an old person that was around and remember eating bananas before the 1950s, that's actually what bananas used to taste like.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: But they don't taste like that anymore.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you, I'm gonna tell you why.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think they say the same thing about tomatoes.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not I don't know of any tomato candy, so they probably don't taste.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, but I'm saying that that tomatoes are much uh blander tasting today than they were 50 to 100 years ago.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with the way they're grown.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but what I'm saying to you, Kelly Shores, at this moment in time is that banana candy, which there is no tomato analogue of banana candy taste like bananas used to.
• 5:28
  unknown: Okay.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you eat a banana candy, you're trying to it's like I'm eating a banana from the 30s or the 1800s.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-1950.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Ah exactly.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying they don't taste like they used to, I'm saying they taste like the candy.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: The candies taste like they used to.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: The candy is trapped in time.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I guess you could say it that way.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably a good time, though, to tell you that I've been allergic to bananas for the last 20 years.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't had a banana in 20 years.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um they've improved, but I they've improved they have not.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I 100% know that they have not approved because I've been studying this uh about bananas, and I know that they haven't changed you have a lot of spare time on your hands.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know other than me?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Americans love bananas, that it's the most popular fruit in the country, and Americans eat an average of 27 pounds per person.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's about 80 bananas per year per person.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not eating any, so someone's eating 80 pounds.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So 27 pounds is 80 bananas.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's eating 160 bananas.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I eat a banana every other day, and they're yeah, it's 160 days, three 365, 180 days.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I eat 180 bananas, that's like 50 pounds of bananas.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the version that people are eating now, and I say version, I'm talking about something called a cultivar.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: It means they're the same species, but the cultivars have all the like flavor properties that we're cared about.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: The flavor that we eat now is called the Cavendish.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Cavendish.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are like apples.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that like Granny Smith with in in terms of apples?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot more variety with apples than there are bananas.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Bananas have very little variety, and that's because of what I'm about to tell you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um Cavendishes are just okay.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're a little bland.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I used to love bananas when I could eat them, but I always loved them better in something, in a smoothie, in a banana split, in a they had a nice texture, bananas foster when you have something else to kind of kick up the taste.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: But eating a banana as a snack leaves you wanting a little flavor, just a little bland.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, agreed.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the Cavendish are the long curved ones, and they're hardy enough to ship all over the world.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: But before the 1950s, there was another cultivar that everybody uh ate.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this cultivar was called Grom Michel.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: G-R-O-S M-I-C-H-E-L-E.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's French for big mic.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Big Mike.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Big Mike.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll call him Big Mike.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Big Mike Mike bananas.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Big Mike was richer, creamier, and had more intense banana flavor than the Cavendish do.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you ate them side by side, you wouldn't believe how good you're missing out on exactly with the Cavendish.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: The key to a big mic is the isoamyl acetate.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Isoamyl acetate is an ester.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember in chemistry?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: You remember we took chemistry together.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like polyester, right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Miss Nyx.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Miss Nyx.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: You remember Miss Nyx taught us about esters?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Miss Nyx.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Poor Miss Nyx.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um leave her alone.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um ester.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so is polyester.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a is that a thing?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's what candy makers and perfume makers love is esters.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's what makes things smell good and and taste good.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um esters are the things that you know give things flavor and and sense.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're the compounds that are made when the acid reacts with an alcohol.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's what we're reacting to in the iso um isoamyl acetate in bananas is is um the in the big mic was um was abundant.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not so much in the Cavendish.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So can you still get big mics?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll get to that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: So along comes a fungus called Fusarium Wilt, otherwise known as Panama disease.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And a Panama disease attacks the the roots of the banana plant and basically chokes it to death.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and when you have a fungus or a disease like that with plants, like when we get diseases, a lot of them are airborne, but with plants, it's soil-based.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And once it gets in the soil, you're done for.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And bananas are all clones, but bananas are made to be genetically identical with each other.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if one is vulnerable to the fungus, they're all vulnerable to the fungus.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no cure, there's no spray, there's no fix.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what people would do, what the banana growers would do, is they would just abandon the land and go to a new patch of land and try that until eventually it would get the fungus and so on and so forth.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they just kept moving different plantations, and by the 1950s, Panama disease had devastated the big mic plantations all over the world.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And bananas are pretty much grown in like in um South America, tropical, Central America, yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um in Asia, very tropical climates, sure.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, enter the Cavendish at that point.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the Cavendish was resistant to the Panama disease, but it was bland.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the crazy thing: so, by in the 1950s, there was a big switch that all of a sudden all the bananas were different.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And do you know that there was not an outcry?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was no social media back then.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, yeah, now I'm still like mad when Chick-fil-A changed their fries to pea starch.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm mad about that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm mad.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you remember when Coke changed their formula?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a world crisis, right?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I already told you people eat 80 bananas a year, it's the most popular fruit.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's been like that for you know over a hundred years.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Overnight, everybody, the flavor of everybody's banana changed, and nobody seemed to care.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's not there's a couple of newspaper articles that you can find where people mention it, but there's nobody writing letters to the editor in the newspaper.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can imagine if all of a sudden a fruit just changed its flavor today.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Overnight.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, people would that that causes a lot of divorces when your banana's flavor changes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not good for your marriage.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know today 99% of all bananas sold in the world are Cavendish?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, it's like nobody seemed to notice or care about that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some you asked if you can still get big mic.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, some places still grow it, but you can't export it.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And because it's so um susceptible to the fungus, there's a lot of restrictions on transporting it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, like if you were to find a farmer somewhere in Vietnam or Costa Rica that might still have a patch of land that could grow the big mic without it being contaminated, you could eat it right there, but you couldn't really take it home or send it to your friends.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You'd have to lie to customs as you went through and they asked if you had any fruits or vegetables.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: You'd have to say, no, sir.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And but the other thing is it might not be ripe by the time you bring it home.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like the other thing about the Cavendish that growers like and supermarkets like is that it's because they're all clones, they're super predictable as to when they're gonna get ripe.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: How long it took to yeah, so if if you're if you know when the banana was picked and at what stage, you know when it's gonna go bad.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And let's face it, supermarkets like that kind of stuff because that's just waste if they're not able to sell that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the soil that's the problem.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you can grow these things in labs, but then you need a totally sterile environment, and you could grow one, but then it would cost like$40 a banana.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I was thinking, you know, there's enough kind of gourmet chefs that you would think somebody out there in Paris or something that would be growing one of these, and nobody, I mean, you you could you could picture somebody having a$300 banana split.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I would do that that there's a six list of get it right in Paris.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I totally would eat that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a chef out there and you want a good um kind of a good way to um brand yourself, now we will sue you if you do this without our um our well, at least let us try, at least let us be tasters, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: We want to taste test it before it goes.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of want naming rights on this.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of want to be like a kidnap city uh thing or something.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think if if you're one if you're a chef out there struggling, wondering how and it's tough out there, Kelly, it's tough out there.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you're wondering if you're wondering what to do to get some kind of a uh viral moment, make make get us yourself a sterile lab, get yourself a botanist, grow a big mic, grow uh maybe a bunch of them.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And viral, but not fungal, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that you distinguish.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: We want a viral moment that is not fungus-based.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Make a$300 banana split.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Comp us.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait, this isn't gonna work.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know why?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm allergic to bananas.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I could just describe it to you.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could just tell you what it's like.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I really want to I do Alex, have you ever so so the reason what are the new ones called?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: The ones that you don't like or the ones that aren't as flavorful?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Cavendish.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Cavendish.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: The reason people like Cavendish bananas is is because they're very portable, they have their own wrapping around them, they seem like they're healthy, they generally give you a little burst of energy because of the sugar.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: But can I tell you, have you ever, well, not you, because you're allergic, have you ever known someone who who took a banana as a snack because they thought, I'm gonna be healthy today, I'm gonna bring a banana with me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: They put it in your backpack, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you stick it in a pocket and you forget about it until two weeks later.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was my son all through school.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: You'd go into his you'd go into his uh lunch box on there'd be fruit flies, fruit flies flying all around.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: He would have not eaten his banana from Friday and by Monday morning it's black.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now I actually thought from back when I did used to eat bananas, and I ate a lot of bananas, that they actually tasted better when they were like rotten.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask, so you prefer it overripe to underripe?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: When they start getting a little bit more than a little bit of a little bit more.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: See, I actually like them a little bit and they start getting a little soft.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, come on, man.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: The minute that happens, what happens in our house?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're crazy.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're not talking about flavor.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're only talking about like I'm talking about texture.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the texture of old bananas.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: But but a f of green flavorless, dude.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a green apple.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually kind of bitter.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly, there's green banana has actually got some bitter.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can go through all your candies.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as green banana.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants a green banana.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: How how are you arguing with me about the taste of bananas when you don't even eat bananas?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is my theory.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, here's the thing.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a theory.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, here's you're living vicariously through us banana eaters, and you think you're an expert on bananas.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to know somebody that eats a lot of bananas, it's Chris.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: I started being allergic to bananas when I turned around 35.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think you're really allergic.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I have a theory that you only get so many bananas in your life, and I'm maxed out at 35.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then you become allergic.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because you ate so many.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I really do think this.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I really do think if you're a food allergy expert out there, tell me I'm wrong.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let us know.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let us know.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: My theory on food allergies is you're allowed to eat a certain amount of everything.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And once you have maxed that out, you become allergic to it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm also allergic to avocados, and I have eaten a lot of avocados in my life, a lot of bananas in my life.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: My mom every day used to make me a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are good.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Elvis's favorite.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Elvis.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Elvis, yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But didn't you fry them too?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't he used to fry those?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fried bananas?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a fried banana fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: If if if anybody's ever been to the county fair, they've had a fried banana, probably, or an opportunity to buy one.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or a frozen banana.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those are good.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's something that we haven't we haven't even talked about.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: The elephant in the room at this point that that I want to ask you about.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Plantains.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where do plantains fall in all this?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Plantains are the savory cousin to um bananas.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I am probably still Are you talking about my allergies or just in general?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, just in general.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I the only time I ever have plantains is when I've been to a Brazilian restaurant.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know this Brazilian steakhouses?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not allowed to dessert.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not allowed to eat those.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I like the plantains or steak?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Plantains.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm still allergic to those.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not um and and I like the chips.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes if you go to a steakhouse like Churrasco's, they'll have like um they're not sweet.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no, well, a little bit, but not as sweet as the as the soft ones.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, those those also can be can have funguses, but um, I think there's more varieties um to plantains.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: So wait, a plantain is actually not a banana?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're related to bananas.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but is it actually a banana?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like if if you said a plantain banana.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not a okay.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'll update my database.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, they they are in your head, you can update that database.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, plantains and plantains are uh are excellent, they're delicious, but they're more like um star they're a starch, you know.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're um a lot of cultures like a as a instead of a potato, right?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but they're sweet, like a banana, I think.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, they're not sweet.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can make them sweet, I suppose, by putting sugar in them, but a plantain by itself is not uh sweet.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we agree to disagree.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: As a guy who who actually eats bananas and plantains, I'm telling you, plantains are sweet.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can someone please give us the answer?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so Alex, for those people who are confused, because I'm confused, the the dead end, what is the actual dead end we're talking about here?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Banana flavor.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, the um, no, uh the big mic.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Big mic is the big okay, okay, okay.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one not paying attention.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So so so the the thumbnail for this is gonna say who was dead big mic?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Grow Michelle.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Grow Michelle.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, all right.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I dig it.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do who was giving a new appreciation.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: We don't do who was anymore, so it doesn't matter.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: On the thumbnail it says that.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: On the thumbnail it says that.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have some bad news that Cavendish are under threat from another fungus called Tropical Race.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh Tropical Race Four.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that sound like a Star Wars disease.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um we could I'm serious, we could have another banana crisis on our hands.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we should buy a lot of bananas now and and store them.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now I mentioned that 99% are Cavendishes.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: There are some other bananas out there.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's one called a Ladyfinger or a sugar banana.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's an apple banana that almost tastes like an apple, which I would love to get my hands on.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's one called a blue Java.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like vanilla, it has a vanilla flavor to it.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a red banana that has like a reddish appeal to it.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we only see the Cavendish in the U.S.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: because of their durability and that ripen ripened predictability.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're mostly imported.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're mostly imported.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: But flavor was never the priority.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: By getting rid of the um big mic, we lost variety by making this Cavendish a thing.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: We lost variety, but we lost flavor.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It never seemed to be a priority for growers that that these things taste good.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the crazy part.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: The markets agreed.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone still ate just as many bananas.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody commented on the flavor.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um and in a way, this whole thing kind of has like um similarity to climate change.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like at the turn of the century, the 20th century, scientists and growers, they knew something was wrong.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: But all they did was keep clearing the jungle, moving plantations, and thinking this is a local issue, it's not a global issue.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Then in the by the 90s by 1940, it was unavoidable and Big Mike collapsed.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it took like 50 years from warnings to collapse.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Companies ignored it, and instead of doing something like diversifying the types, they just assumed that science was gonna figure it out.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: They said this is a tomorrow problem.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then tomorrow arrived, and bananas were terrible.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we knew just enough to act, but not enough to panic.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And bananas banana companies made their decisions based on quarterly profits, but not long-term, and definitely not flavor.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said, it made a banana lobby.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It paid off because sales never took a hit, and everybody just kind of went about their lives eating inferior bananas.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dole, we're looking at you.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Chiquita, we're looking at you.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: Oh bananas.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_04: Just out on his second job, and he was scaring the next day's based booch.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: For everyone in that cold starts in it, with children played without despair in backyards, lack miles, and folks manage to eat each day.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_04: About their death, ow, ow.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, just about their dead thousand pounds.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: Dreaming again, jump.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_04: Saying shift the low gear of$50, fine, my friend.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_04: He was thinking perhaps about the warm breath woman who was waiting at the journey's end.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_04: He started down the two-mile drop, the curbing road that wound from the top of the hill.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_04: He was pushing on through the shortening miles.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_04: The friend down to the depot.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: Just a few more miles to go.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: Then he'd go home and have her easy alone, cramp the day away.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_04: And the smell of 30,000 pounds.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_04: A banana.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, the smell of 30,000 pounds.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_04: A banana.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_04: He was picking up speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: But I paid no heed as a shivering thought of the night.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_04: Delight went through him.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_04: It's quite to slow him down.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_04: But the pedal floor easy without a sound.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_04: It was funny how he had named the old landman.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_04: Could save him now.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: He was trapped inside a dead in hill slide, riding on his big punch back.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_04: Was everywhere one of those yellow green?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm telling you up there, thousand pounds.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, there was a thousand pounds.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_04: A bananas made the sweep and curved land and two The sweep and three.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: Not to mention an arm or two before he starts.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he smeared for 400 yards along a hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: All those thirty thousand pounds.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_05: Boy, it sure must have been something.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_06: A banana.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_06: Just banana.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_06: A banana.