|
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World | 
| Author: Dan Koeppel
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $8.85
You Save: $7.15 (45%)
New (29) Used (6) from $6.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 25886
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0452290082
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
EAN: 9780452290082
ASIN: 0452290082
Publication Date: December 30, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
BIn the vein of the bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the worlds most popular fruit/BBRBR In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the bananas history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, IBanana/I takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Edenexamining scholars belief that Eves apple was actually a banana and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named banana republics rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the bananas path to the present, ultimatelyand most alarminglytaking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sightand to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the worlds most beloved fruit.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Bunchy Top, Black Sigatoko, Race 4, and Xanthomonas Wilt January 5, 2009
"Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" - Mae Westbr /br /Well, perhaps Mae didn't put it exactly like that, but this is a book about bananas not guns, so I had to improvise freely.br /br /BANANA by Dan Koeppel is perhaps everything you wanted to know about the herb - yes, herb - and then some. It traces the migration of the human cultivation and mass consumption of the fruit from its origin in Southeast Asia eastward and westward around the globe until both flows met in the Americas. Most of the narrative concerns the international political intrigues and social injustices committed by the two great banana monopolies, Chiquita - formerly Boston Fruit, then United Fruit, then United Brands - and Dole - formerly Standard Fruit. (Yes, there are other sellers, e.g. Del Monte and Fyffes, but they get only scant mention.) Much of the remainder of the text is devoted to the depredations of various plant diseases - Bunchy Top Disease, Black Sigatoko, Race 4, Banana Xanthomonas Wilt - that threaten the very existence of the current mass-marketed banana, the Cavendish, just as such plagues wiped out its predecessor, the Gros Michel, by the early 1960s. The author emphasizes the point that development of disease-resistant plants is particularly hindered by the sexless, i.e. seedless, nature of most mass-cultivated bananas and the Cavendish in particular.br /br /BANANA contains only a small number of widely scattered black and white photos which, considering the importance of the banana as a mandatory barrier against starvation in much of the Third World, perhaps does the subject matter an injustice.br /br /For the reader so inclined, BANANA, like Salt: A World History, PURE KETCHUP PB, and Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey--The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World, is an engaging and erudite, though slightly rambling, survey of an esoteric culinary subject. I'll never again look at the banana display in my local supermarket, or the little stickers on the individual fruits, in the same way. And during my next infrequent visit to the gourmet/organic food seller known colloquially as "Whole Paycheck", I'll make a point of reconnoitering the produce section for rarely-seen alternatives to the Cavendish, such as the Lacatan, and perhaps splurge.br /br /(Note: This review is of the hardcover edition.)
 Crazy about Banana November 24, 2008
I decided to read this book after hearing about it on NPR. I just had to know more about how Americas favorite fruit had control over much of the worlds great powers. Its awesome. I love all food and want to know as much about it as I can. I sure know a lot more about Bananas than I used to. I also took something away from this book that I didn't expect. I learned more geography and science from this book than I did in highschool, though I must say I wasn't the best of students. It proved to me that geography and science can be very interesting if they are put into a form that you understand. LOVE THE BANANA!
Banana Review November 3, 2008
I enjoyed it very much, but I tend to really like agricultural related material. The history of the companies were the highlights for me.
 A Rambling, Poorly Written Novel September 3, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Like many others here, I purchased this book because of its exposure on Public Radio. Based on what I'd heard I was hoping for an informative and engaging book. Sadly, I was disappointed on both counts. This is a rambling history of the banana intermixed with very poorly described science. I'm sure there is a fascinating story to be told about the sordid history of United Fruit and the future of the banana. This isn't it.br /br /The author relies heavily on ridiculous hyperbole (The banana is nearly extinct; Oh I mean it may face extinction in 5, 10, or 20 years; Oh I mean there are a number of maladies that affect the most popular variety of banana). These short hyperbolic sections are padded out by long, poorly written chapters tracing the history of the banana and focus primarily on the misdeeds of United Fruit. There is just not enough compelling history nor enough detailed science to make a novel here. I don't know how this made it past an editor (it could lose 100 pages easily), but in any case this book is not worth your time.br /
Mangu de Platano August 27, 2008
I am deeply grateful to Koeppel for the tribute he paid to Phil Rowe, the United Brands banana/plantain breeder in Honduras who died in 2001. Koeppel never met him but obviously captured a strong sense of who Phil was and his important contribution to world food security. I met Phil Rowe in 1981 in Tela Honduras and spent the day enthralled listening and learning about challenges to the World banana/plantain crop and Phil's efforts to overcome the challenges to successful banana/plantain breeding. br /br /Koeppel's book emphasizes dessert banana issues. However, the World primarily relies on bananas and plantains as a vegetable crop. In the Dominican Republic they eat cooked green plantains 3 times a day and prefer it to potatoes. Next time you are in New York stop by a Dominican restaraunt and try mangu de platano for breakfast or fresh tostones hot off of the skillet. For those of you that have lived or visited Panama or Colombia, tostones are called patacones.
|
|
|
| |
