The Cavendish Banana

A peanut butter sandwich, a banana and a glass of soy milk.

It may not be as poetic as, “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou”, but it works pretty well for me.

I am a creature of habit. I need nourishment soon after I rise in the morning and I usually have the sandwich, fruit and beverage that I mentioned above. Lately however I have been concerned about reports that the banana, as we know it, may become unavailable in the next ten to twenty years.

Bananas were practically unknown in America before 1870. The only real fresh fruits available in our produce stores during the winter months were from the citrus family. Two different individuals discovered the year round marketability of bananas at nearly the same time and by 1899 the various operations had merged to form the United Fruit Company. Because the fruit was available year round and could be picked green and allowed to ripen either naturally or in gas chambers it was easy to promote and deliver on a regular basis.

There are hundreds of varieties of bananas from all over the world. Some have large seeds and they vary in color, size, sweetness and texture. Most of our bananas come from the Caribbean and the variety we see in abundance in our grocery stores is the Cavendish. But that was not the variety that was marketed originally by the United Fruit Company. The first popular variety was the Gros Michel. It sounds like such a royal name that I cannot help but wonder how it tasted. I will probably never have the opportunity to find out. By the 1950s the Gros Michel was dying in large numbers due to Panama disease. It soon became unprofitable to produce and market it so the company replaced it with the Cavendish. The problem that some scientists are predicting is that this variety is doomed to a similar fate in the foreseeable future. What will replace our precious banana? Who knows? I hope it doesn’t have large seeds because as the Hoosier Hot Shots put it so musically, I Like Banana Because They Have No Bones.

The banana is such a large part of our food culture here in the United States that we take it for granted.

One of my favorite character actors is the late Andy Devine. If you are a fan of old Westerns you will undoubtedly remember him as “Cookie”, the side kick of Roy Rogers. He had a high pitched whining kind of a voice that contrasted well with his rather large frame. I like to think of him as being “traditionally built” but then I also like to think of myself as being the same size that I was in High School. I like to think lots of things. I digress.

The Great Andy Devine

Mr. Devine had a long and wonderful career and appeared in well over a hundred movies and many TV shows. He was in the classic western, Stagecoach as well as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Word and Myra Breckenridge. His television appearances include everything from Bonanza, Twilight Zone and Batman to a regular character in the first year of the show Flipper.

He characters were often humorous but he did dramatic roles as well. Probably the role he is remembered for most in our house is the voice of Friar Tuck in the Disney animated film Robin Hood.

Frank Zappa wrote a song called Andy that is a reference to him and contains some very strange lyrics but that is nothing unusual for Mr. Zappa.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were watching a movie I borrowed from the library called Torrid Zone.

When I was kid and we only had two or if we were lucky three stations we could watch on our television, the networks used to have regular hours set aside for old movies. I guess they had a harder time filling time slots so whenever they were at a loss as to what to use to fill a couple of hours they would show some old movie. I remember in particular an afternoon slot at around 4:00 PM when either NBC or CBS would show an afternoon movie. Most of the time I was outside riding my bike or playing baseball or fishing, but occasionally the weather would be bad or I would just be bored so I would plop down in front of the old black and white set and watch whatever movies they had on.

While watching the Torrid Zone the other night I remembered seeing it as a child on one of those quiet afternoons I spent in front of the set.

Torrid Zone is from 1940 and it stars Pat O’Brien, James Cagney and Ann Sheridan. The action takes place on a banana plantation somewhere in the Caribbean. Pat O’Brien is the manager and James Cagney plays an overseer who works off and on for O’Brien. Cagney is one of the few people capable of getting the bananas to the shipping port on a regular basis. Ann Sheridan is a singer/card shark who is passing through the local port.

Pat ‘Obrien basically runs the whole town. The local police do everything he says and he wants Ann Sheridan out of the way and on down the road. He cannot tolerate anything the does not help get his precious fruit shipped.

The actual history of the United Fruit Company was quite close to this in the way they operated in Guatemala, Costa Rica and other banana producing countries. They were such a large part of the economy of these small underdeveloped nations that the company itself was pretty much the law and what was good for the company was what was good for the country. If you have ever heard of the term “Banana Republic” this is where it comes from.

In the movie a local peasant hero is captured and sentenced to die by a firing squad. He meets Ann Sheridan in jail and as he is leaving to go to his execution he gives her a ring he is wearing.

The particular piece of dialogue that I remembered from my childhood is when he tells her that he won’t need the ring where he is going. Her reply is classic.

“What, are you afraid it will melt”?

The whole movie is full of snappy one-liners like that and I found it a joy to watch.

And to make it even better, Andy Devine plays James Cagney’s helper. His whiney voice and comical expressions fit right in with the quick repartee of the other stars. The movie is a great example of fast pace modern humor and a great example of just how much control this American business had over the politics of these small countries. Gee, I wonder? Do you suppose American businesses have any control over foreign economies and politics anymore? I guess I’ll just let that one lie there.

Another nod to the notion of a “Banana Republic” can be seen in Woody Allen’s great early film, appropriately entitled Bananas. Woody, of course, takes the whole concept way over the top in a slapstick manner, but it still works very well.

Banana (the book)

While writing this I dug around into some of the many books I own on food and cooking and came up with a gem of a book called The Banana by Philip Keep Reynolds. It was printed in 1927 and has a tipped in sheet in the front of it that indicates it was a gift to someone from the Fruit Dispatch Company. The book is full of black and white photographs, maps and illustrations and it chronicles the early history of banana production and marketing in and around the United States and the Caribbean. Of course this is about the Gros Michel variety not the Cavendish. At this point the Gros Michel was not dying from Panama disease.

I’m sure that the reason I like peanut butter and bananas so much is because we always had them in the house when I was a kid. Whenever we were hungry and there wasn’t anything else to devour my Mom would say, “Go make a peanut butter sandwich”.

Now we are faced with the demise of the banana as we know it and added to that is the new threat of salmonella in our peanut butter. I’m sure you are all aware of the massive recall of certain peanut butter products. My wife told me the other day that I should stop eating peanut butter sandwiches to be on the safe side. I don’t know that I need to be that concerned but who knows? If you don’t see a post from me after this, I guess you might consider that I ate one too many PB sandwiches.

It was great watching that old movie and making that connection with my childhood. Peanut butter and bananas may end up going the way of the late great Andy Devine. Just like many people, I try to hold on to the past but change is inevitable. What I think is important is not the things we had or the things we try to hold onto. The real value is in the memories. No one can take those from us.

Sometimes I see it sitting on the shelf and other times it’s in the freezer section. I’m talking about The Original Ezekiel 4:9 Bread. The bag says it’s Organic Sprouted 100% Whole Grain and the motto is “sprouted for life”. There is a lot to read on this bread’s bag including the fact that it’s 100% flourless and it’s made by the Rainier Organic Bakery. The Fresh Taste of the Great Northwest, since 1945. That’s a lot of information but let me bring it down to a very simple fact that means something to Bob. I like the way it tastes.

I have been a big (and I mean that in every sense) fiber enthusiast for quite a few years. When companies started processing the fiber out of our grains in an effort to increase the shelf life of the product they began to rob us of important nutrients. The key word in that sentence is “product” because in almost every instance the process of altering the foods has happened because some company wanted to extend the shelf life of their product. That is when the foods quit being foods and became “products”. White flour will keep for a longer period of time than whole grain flour. White flour doesn’t die as soon because processing the fiber out of it has the same effect as killing it. The manufacturers killed it so it wouldn’t die. I love food but am quite skeptical of “products”.

My short lecture on fiber follows. White bread and pasta as well as other over processed and over refined foods have caused us to miss out on the fiber that our bodies desperately need. One result of this deficiency is the rise of colon cancer in the American population. Without going into too many details let me just say that we need fiber to keep us clean and regular. Everyone who is fifty years old or more needs to see their doctor about having a colonoscopy. If you haven’t had one, go see your doctor. Enough said.

By eating foods with substantial amounts of fiber we can all keep our colons clean and our bodies healthy.

In addition to that, whole grain bread just tastes better.

I am one of those people who read ingredients on the labels of food in the grocery store. I want to know how much sugar is in the food I buy. I want to know how much fiber, fat and cholesterol is in the bread and other “products” I consume. I guess I just like being the one who makes my choices, even if they are not always the best ones.

This bread has half a gram of fat, 90 calories and 6 grams of fiber in each slice. I think the USDA guidelines say that we should all be getting about 25 grams of fiber a day. Whenever I eat a fried egg or peanut butter sandwich made with this stuff, I am fulfilling almost half of that daily recommended requirement. Of course there are many other places to get substantial amounts of fiber. Fruits and vegetables have some. Beans and brown rice are also good sources. If you have questions about the actual amounts do what most other intelligent internet users do and Google it. Come on people. You are sitting in front of the most powerful learning tool that the world has ever known but it won’t do you any good if you don’t get out there and make it work for you.

Whole grain breads and other foods with substantial amounts of fiber can be found almost everywhere in the United States. I do the grocery shopping in my family so when my wife and I relocated to the beautiful Pacific Northwest I was looking for a whole grain bread that was made somewhere near our home. Eating locally is another one of my interests and I will have more to say about that in the future. The bright orange packaging of this bread caught my eye and while I was examining the information on the bag I could not help but be drawn to the name. Ezekiel 4:9. Wow, an Old Testament reference. I love the Old Testament. What great stories. What fantastic moral directions. What confusing, maddening and contradictory advice. I love those books.

I want to make it clear that I understand that it is more correct to refer to that collection of books that begins with Genesis as the Jewish Bible, not the Old Testament. Many people today do not think it proper to call it that because it could be construed as demeaning to the Jewish people as they regard it as their Bible in whole. They do not consider the so called New Testament as scripture from God. What Christians refer to as the Old Testament is to them the whole Testament. Most Christian people feel the same way about the Koran. For them the Bible is whole and complete with the Old and New Testaments while Islamic believers include the Old and New Testaments as well as the Koran. Many characters in the Old and New Testament including Abraham, Moses and even Jesus also appear in the Koran. Just as the Jewish people believe the revelations of God ended with the Old Testament, Christian believers feel that it ended with the New Testament. That is of course unless you are a Mormon and believe that the Book of Mormon is a continuation of divine revelation. It can certainly be confusing, can’t it?

I was raised in the Christian tradition so I still think of the Bible as being composed of the Old and the New Testament however I do not think that one collection of revelations outweighs another and I would not want to offend my friends of the Jewish faith. I mean no disrespect to them or to any practicing Muslim or Mormon believers. It’s a rough world out there. Hold on to what faith you can and God be with you. OK.

There have been many English translations of the Bible. There are also many opinions about which ones are more accurate, which ones are the easiest to understand and which ones are more beautiful or poetic. Once again, I find myself returning to what I was raised on. That does not mean that everyone should read the version I read or that my choice is the right one. I am just a little bit tired of everyone telling all of us what the right choices are. It is an election year (or should I say decade; it’s gone on so long). I read the much maligned King James Version because that’s the Bible my mom and dad got me for Christmas when I was eight years old and that’s the version that was read in the church I grew up in and I love the language. It is the English of Shakespeare’s time and I place great importance on poetry. Once again, I get to choose.

As soon as I got the first loaf of bread home I pulled out my King James and looked up the quote the bread was named for. Here it is

“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”

Wow! A recipe for bread from the Bible. How cool is that?

I checked the side of the bag for the ingredients and I saw that it had everything listed from this passage in Ezekiel in sprouted form. That explained why they said it was flourless. It was all there except for one item. Where were the fitches and for that matter why would a recipe call for birds in a loaf of bread? Was this like the four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie? Reading the Bible is always an adventure. I just love it.

Wait a minute. What was that you said honey? Oops. My wife just screamed at me from the other room where she was proof reading this post and said, “What the heck’s the matter with you? It says fitches…not finches.” Oops. Ok. Never mind about the blackbirds in the pie.

So just what is a fitch? Fortunately there was a footnote in my Bible that said that “fitches” meant rye. That made a lot more sense to me but I have to admit that rye was not listed in the ingredients. I decided it was my turn to take my own advice and just Google the darn thing. I found two different explanations. One said fitch was a spice called black cummin. Another source said that it had been misinterpreted as rye but really meant spelt.

I should explain here that I am not one of those people who claims to take the whole Bible as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I do not believe in what I think is referred to as a literal interpretation of the Bible. I will not go there right now but suffice it to say that I think you are causing yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble by trying to believe that and somehow live your life that way. I know many would argue with me about this but I just can’t go there and will not go there at this time. The good news for me is that because I do not believe in interpreting the Bible in that strict (and impossible) manner, I can forgive the Rainier Organic Bakery for leaving out the rye. However, if the interpretation of rye is incorrect and it should be spelt, then everything is cool. Sprouted spelt is listed as an ingredient so I guess they have been diligent in following the biblical directive. I’m still more impressed by the fact that the bread tastes great.

If you live in the area where this bread is distributed you need to check out this great tasting food source. Their web site is at www.rainierorganicbakery.com and they have a whole line of great foods for sale. I have tried the Raisin Cinnamon and love it as well. I also just visited the site and discovered they have a new bread named for the infamous Sasquatch that is widely accepted as living in the Pacific Northwest. That is the truth.

Finding local bread made from a Biblical recipe has inspired me to look for more spiritual food products that come from this beautiful area of the country. Washington State is quickly becoming world renown for the excellent wines that are produced here and my new goal is to find one that has been made in the manner that Jesus used at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. I wonder if any of the local vintners have ever read Chapter 2 of the Gospel of John.

I just finished eating a delightful cold meatloaf sandwich. I love meatloaf and I love a good sandwich but I want to talk about a new condiment find I’ve just discovered.

Everyone has heard of the Earl of Sandwich. Supposedly the name we have for food stuffed into some sort of bread comes from his love of them. It has been reported that he liked sandwiches because he could eat them and still play cards. Apparently he was a practical sort of guy.

The Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) also get their name from this noble dude.

I had always assumed that sandwiches in their many styles and forms were predominately an American food idea but Wikipedia says they go back much further than colonial America. We eat peanut butter, bologna, egg salad, tuna fish and many more kinds of sandwiches every day. You can wrap them in waxed paper, plastic bags or old newspapers if you are so inclined. We eat them cold, hot or warmed up. We eat ice cream sandwiches and we eat submarine sandwiches. The main idea of the sandwich extends to hot dogs and sausages and in many ways a burrito is a type of sandwich. After all it’s just a cooked flour wrapper around a filling.

I remember hearing about my namesake, Uncle Bob, eating leftover baked bean sandwiches when I was young and I enjoy them as well. Of course I put mustard on mine, just like my egg sandwich. In fact I like mustard probably more than any other condiment. I usually put mustard on hamburgers which are certainly just another sandwich form.

When I wrote earlier of making an egg sandwich as a young man I mentioned that my father and I both liked mustard on the sandwich. Of course the sandwich that I wrote about making and eating that particular day had a couple of differences from the ones he ate.

First of all, I am primarily a whole grain bread person these days. It’s not that I never eat white bread or use white flour, it’ just that I have come to appreciate the better taste as well as the usefulness of more fiber in my diet. We should all be thinking about the health of our colons but that’s a post I will save for another time.

The other major difference in the two egg sandwiches was the mustard used. I was pretty much raised on French’s yellow mustard and that is a very good everyday mustard. There is nothing bad I can say about it except that I like things a little more lively when they pass over my taste buds.

The mustard I used on my egg sandwich and the mustard I just spread on the bread for my cold meatloaf sandwich is a brand I just discovered and am really enjoying. It’s made in Pendleton, Oregon by a company called Haus Barhyte, Inc. I have had the pleasure of sampling several of the different styles of mustard they make and while they are all very good, this particular flavor has captured my attention. I don’t know if it is found in grocery stores very far from Oregon. It may only be distributed on the west coast. Look for Haus Barhyte Dill Mustard and if you can’t find it in your local store it can be ordered online, of course, at www.mustardpeople.com. These fine folks sell a variety of condiments and sauces and if the Dill Mustard is any indication of their talents, I’m sure you will enjoy any of them.

Of course you do have to like dill as well as mustard in order to enjoy this condiment but for me it allows me to get the dill pickle flavor that I crave on burgers or hotdogs without having actually have the dill pickles on hand. It’s kind of a space saver in the sandwich which allows more room for other stuff like, tomatoes or onions or cheese or “you fill in the blank”.

Remember those big old “Dagwood” sandwiches that Blondie’s husband used to make in the cartoons?

This mustard is creamy and the dill flavor is full and almost crisp. In truth, the flavor almost jumps out at you. One of my wife’s brothers used to coat pork chops and burgers in mustard before he grilled them and I remember them being very tasty. I’m going to try this dill mustard on one of the next burgers I grill. If you love mustard and dill you should try this stuff.

I love a good sandwich. I love a good mustard and I love meatloaf both hot and cold. There is much I can and intend to say in the future about meatloaf. There are thoughts on bread and ground grains that I intend to write about as well. After making all of these promises I hope I haven’t bitten off more than…..well. You get the idea.