Long before the Cavendish banana became the popular grocery store item Americans know and love, a different type of banana was considered the standard.
The Gros Michel, often known as Big Mike, was the first type of banana to be cultivated on a large scale and started appearing in North American and European cities in the late 1800s. (It’s rise was all thanks to naturalist Nicolas Baudin, who some might call a French Johnny Appleseed, who deposited the plant stems on islands in the Caribbean.)
But soon after, the virulent Panama disease descended upon plantations and devastated the crop, disrupting the international supply by the 1940s. And by the 1960s, most commercial operations in the Americas and Caribbean had halted production of Gros Michel.
If you’d like to try the Gros Michel — which has a sweeter taste and creamier consistency than the Cavendish — you can still find it in parts of Southeast Asia, Africa and islands in the Pacific.
From the linked article below:
Long before the Cavendish banana became the popular grocery store item Americans know and love, a different type of banana was considered the standard.
The Gros Michel, often known as Big Mike, was the first type of banana to be cultivated on a large scale and started appearing in North American and European cities in the late 1800s. (It’s rise was all thanks to naturalist Nicolas Baudin, who some might call a French Johnny Appleseed, who deposited the plant stems on islands in the Caribbean.)
But soon after, the virulent Panama disease descended upon plantations and devastated the crop, disrupting the international supply by the 1940s. And by the 1960s, most commercial operations in the Americas and Caribbean had halted production of Gros Michel.
If you’d like to try the Gros Michel — which has a sweeter taste and creamier consistency than the Cavendish — you can still find it in parts of Southeast Asia, Africa and islands in the Pacific.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-bananas
Suffice to say, The LORD has a Great sense of Humor!