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Short Stuff: Artificial Banana Flavor · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: chuck where the banana splits and this is short stuff.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Let's go. I thought you were gonna say we're bananas
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: for banana flavoring. I should have I think we should
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: retake this whole thing. Frankly, no, no way, not not
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: by a million years years. Was better than mine. Uh,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: this is a good episode. Hats off to you for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: putting it together. Thank you, But the hats really come
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: off to a few a handful of astute listeners. Chuck,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: because I had no idea about this until in our
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: watermelon episode. If you'll remember, you started talking about how
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: just far off like banana candy flavor is from actual
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: banana taste, and I was like, you're absolutely right, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: they just like they just missed the mark so badly.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: But after we we talked about that, um, we didn't
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: e lies. We'd accidentally stumbled into kind of like a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: overlooked history of at least flavor science, if not pop
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: culture that some of our listeners wrote in, say, guys, guys,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: get this, that banana flavoring actually is really dead on
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to a banana that we don't eat anymore. It was
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: created back at a time when there's this banana that's
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: not around any longer was popular. And that's why it
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: seems weird to us because it doesn't taste like bananas
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: we eat today. And I just started tearing at my
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: clothing and shaking my head left and right. I was like,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: gott to get a short stuff out as fast as
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: possible about this delirium, said, and when you heard there
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: was an O B that's right, an O G B
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. And that banana, my friends, is called
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: is it Michelle m the gross Michelle g R O
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: S M I C H E L. That was a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: banana grown in the mid of the beginning of the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century by off he grow in Jamaica. And uh,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: we would you know, Big Mike would be his name
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: here in the States. But it was gross Michelle. And
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: this stuff was great for sitting around the world because
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: it grew in little tight bunches. It was very thick skin,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: it was very slow to ripen after he picked it off,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and so it was really good as a as a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: shipping fruit until disaster struck in that right. Yeah, So
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so I think in the eighteen seventies around then the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: gross Michelle like became the dominant banana and that lasted
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: all the way. That's how it's right. That lasted all
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the way until the nineteen fifties when something called a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Panama disease or banana wilt, which is a fungal disease
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that attacks banana plants um and it's caused by a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: fungus called Fusarium oxy spoor um form us. Specialist Cuban say,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and it aroused the dead or something. I look out
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: behind you, chuck um and Uh, this particular soil dwelling
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: fungus really munches down on banana crops. And so after
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: seventy years of market dominance, the gross Michelle went basically
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: extinct in less than a decade because this banana wilt
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: just took hold and spread through the banana crops like wildfire. Yeah,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: which is a problem when you have a monoculture, when
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you have all these identical essentially plants and you have
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a fungus that attacks it, Uh, you're gonna have no
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: more bananas or any sort of monoculture. So, like you said,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: within ten years it's gone went from the O B
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to the NOBI And everyone said, we gotta get a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: new banana. We invented the cavendish, and that's what we
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: eat today. It's another monoculture, so something else comes along
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that's trouble. But the cavendish is resistant to Panama disease,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and so far, so good. We're the cabinash is doing
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: pretty well. Yes, but there they've identified a couple of diseases.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The cavendish is not um resistant too, and so if
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: those diseases ever took hold, we'd have the same problem
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: all over again. So the banana growing industry does not
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: learn lessons very well. And that cavendish is if you
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: are eating a banana today, basically anywhere in the world,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: there's genuinely a chance that banana is a Cavendish, because
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: not only is the cavendish the most widely grown variety
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that supplies the world's bananas, um the the cavendishes that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: are grown are actually clones of one another. Because it's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: really really hard to get a banana to get sexy
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: with another banana, so they use clones. They take rhizomes
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: from one plant plant that grow another plant, and so
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: those plants are clones of one another, meaning they're not
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: very genetically dissimilar, they're pretty much identical. And um, that
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: means that if you have a disease that can take
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: out one of those plants, it can take out all
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: those plants. And so the Cavendish, like you said, is
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: in the same position that the gross Michelle is. We've
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: just lucked out by not happening yet. That's right. So
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the top banana is gone, second banana is now dominant,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and I think that's time for a break before I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: think of another bad pun, and we'll be right back. Well,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know, all right, alrighty, so now
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: we're at the part where we talk about banana candy
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and everything from an Hour Later's I'm sorry now and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Laters always said an hour Laters when I was too
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: now and Laters, which is really that's a huge sea change.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And I think about it, yeah, because they're saying like,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: have them start now, and you're gonna be chewing them
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: later still too, because they don't go away very fast
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: or runts or Nico wafers, any of that stuff. You've
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: probably eaten it and said, this really doesn't taste like
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a banana, and like you mentioned the beginning, it is
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: because it doesn't taste like a cabinish. Apparently it does
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: taste like a gross Michelle. And there is a very
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: nuanced story to why. Yeah, because the gist of the story,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the legend as it goes, is that they created this
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: banana flavoring to to mimic the dominant banana at the time,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the gross Michelle. The gross Michelle went extinct, but this
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: banana flavoring carried on. And so to those of us
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: alive today who've never had a gross Michelle, it seems
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: weird and foreign. But it's not like the chemists like
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: extracted gross Michelle and then injected into the candy and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: then that's where banana flavoring came from. It's, like you said,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the whole thing was a lot more nuanced than that.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And in fact, they developed this artificial banana flavor and
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: then tinkered with it to make it mimic the gross
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Michelle um, which as we'll see, they apparently did pretty well. Yeah,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: so there was believe it or not, there's a banana
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: flavoring researcher. I think just general researcher, but an author
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: named Nadia Rubinstein who did a lot of research on this,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: on this story and trace the development of the banana
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: flavoring back to nineteen twelve by these New Jersey chemists,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the I guess the Fritz brothers. Sure, Fritcha. It's like
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Fritz and mixed together scch. It's kind of a weird name.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: But they said that Frish she Fris the Freshi brothers.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: But they were from New Jersey, so they didn't take
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: any guff and they didn't didn't want anybody poking around
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: their banana synthesizing operation. But uh not. Eve Rubenstein found
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: out that they did isolate from real bananas and that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they were they had to have been gross Michelle because
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: that was the again, the top banana. Right, So you say, well,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: then the story is true. They took gross Michelle essence
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and put it into candies. Still not quite right, because
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: it gets a little more convoluted than that, because what
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: they extracted from the gross Michelle and identified as basically
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: banana essence is a chemical compound called amal ascetate. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it's not just found in bananas, it's found in other
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: fruits and it's actually one of the other fruits that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's really kind of predominant. It is pairs and um.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Rubinstein found from a research that depending on the company
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you're buying from and the decade it was, uh amal
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: ascetate would be marketed in their catalogs either as banana
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: essence or pair essence, and that over the years it
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: eventually is just kind of evened out into a generic
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: fruity essence because it's it is. It depends a lot
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: on the power of suggestion and the nose or tongue
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of the beholder what fruit evokes. Yeah, and this is
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I think where it gets super cool because, uh, if
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you live in the UK, you probably eat a little
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: more pear than banana, or at least historically or culturally,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that's sort of the deal. Then you might hear in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the United States, I think Americans eat like what like
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty bananas a or something like that.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: That's everyone around the world. Yeah, but the UK is
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: big on their pears and pear flavor things. So if
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you take the very same exact vial of that what's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it called again, amial ascetate, amial acetate, he's sticking under
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the nose. First of all, you say, get that beer
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: pine out of your hands so you can smell something
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: for a change, And they say, all right, and you
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: put that vial under the nose of someone from the UK,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: they'll say, tastes like pears. Put that same vile under
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: an American. First of all, you smack the the cheap
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: light beer out of the American's hand and you put
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that under their nose, and they'll say it tastes like
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a banana. And it's the same thing, right, It's the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: same vial. It all depends on what you've been exposed to.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Remember we were talking about like like Gray candy having
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: banana flavor. If you would even be able to recognize
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: this banana flavor, like I was right in a really
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: roundabout way, which I was sure super love that kind
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of thing, um, because you you you have to basically
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: tell people this is banana candy, this flavor, it's banana flavor. Um.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And the thing is, though, is they really did kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of nail the taste of gross Michelle with this um
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: amial acetate. Because upon later inspection, food science and flavoring
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: science has gotten exponentially more sophisticated than it was back
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: in n when the Fritzie Brothers were working UM and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: they found that that Gross Michelle bananas had more of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a related compound called iso amal acetate than the Cavendish does.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And UM that because of this kind of thicker concentration
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of amal acetate in this this banana flavoring, it evokes
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the Gross Michelle way more than it does the Cavendish.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And like you said, beyond his food scientists, there is
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a a banana grower in Hawaii that does grow that
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: top banana, the o G banana, the Gross Michelle and
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: they went out, you know, the BBC interviewed this guy
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and he was like, They're like, well, what it was
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the Gross Michelle taste? Like he said, it tastes like
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that fake banana flavor. Yeah, it tastes like a runt
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: to basically. Uh. And then and he said, you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: when I first tasted, it made me think of banana flavoring.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So I want to get my hands on one of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: those Gross Michelle. I want to go to Hawaii and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and check this thing out. Yeah. Same here. Next time
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: we're in Hawaii, Chuck, I'll bring you back some Gross
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Michells because they're great for shipping. That's right, You just
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: drop one in the mail. Yeah. I will put some
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: stamps on it and send it to you. Ah, you
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: got anything else about gross Michelle or banana flavoring. No.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I thought this was super interesting. Me too. I've loved it.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: So thanks for all the to the listeners who wrote
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in to let us know about this wonderful little story.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Uh and in the meantime, everybody's short stuff is out.
• 12:33
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• 12:35
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• 12:41
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