Platystemon posted:

The banana defender has logged on.

That photo is ’shopped.

There is a real cultivar called ‘Blue Java’ that does produce blueish bananas. They can look like this:



They can also look only as blue as this:



Nearly all of the plants sold as ‘Blue Java’ in the United States are actually an unrelated cultivar because a wholesaler mixed them up and retailers pass on the bad identification. I think that variety, ‘Namwah’, is the one in the ’shopped photo. It’s a fine banana in its own right. Neither of them taste at all like vanilla ice cream to my palate.

If you’re ever in a market in a tropical area, do try some of the local bananas. They may not taste like vanilla ice cream, but they also do not taste like the supermarket variety, ‘Cavendish’.

‘Cavendish’ itself may not be on the shelves forever. Up to a quarter of banana growers’ expenses go toward controlling the black sigatoka fungus. Organic farmers spend even more money slashing and burning virgin rainforest to create a temporarily sterile environment in which they can grow an Organic® crop. Once the fungus inevitably moves in, they spray shiploads of fungicide everywhere, give up their organic certification on the property, and cut down more rainforest elsewhere to meet the demand for ~organic~ nanners.

At farmer’s markets, you might also find the ‘Gros Michel’, the banana that launched a thousand coups. Many people think it’s extinct, but it’s not. It is no longer the foundation of the banana republic, but it is still grown on a decent scale in Southeast Asia and on small farms throughout the tropics.