Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
figure 2.4.''ChineseBanana''(i.e.,Cavendishcultivar)onaUnitedFruit
experimentalplot(1920s).UnitedFruitCompanyPhotographCollection.Baker
Library,HarvardBusinessSchool.
be all but forgotten for the next 25 years.
94
The initial failure to develop a
commercial hybrid cannot be attributed entirely to the banana's biology.
In order to be a commercial success, hybrids had to possess both resis-
tance toF. oxysporum and a strong resemblance to Gros Michel fruit—the
variety around which U.S. mass markets had formed.
mass markets, consumer cultures,
and the top banana
At the same time that Gros Michel monocultures were expanding in
the Caribbean and Central America, bananas were slipping into every-
day life in the United States. By the 1920s, the symbolic consumption of
the banana had achieved a mass scale. As had been the case since the
mid-nineteenth century, bananas generally were icons of zany—and in-
