Yesterday I went to market and bought several types of banana. They are now sitting on the counter and I am trying to decide which one to have with my breakfast. As I look at them I think about their long history, of their beginnings in Asia, their travels to Africa, and eventually finding rest in the tropical and sub-tropical world. Bananas and plantains are now one of the most popular fruits consumed world-wide, and they are tasty and healthy fruits.
Bananas and plantains belong to the genus Musa, of which about 70 species are known. They are herbaceous plants and although may grow as tall as a small tree the stem is not woody but made up of the long leaf petioles (leaf stalks) wrapped around each other. When the plant is ready to flower a true stem grows up through the leaf sheaf.
Bananas originate from the Indomalayan region and parts of north-east Australasia but has now been introduced to many tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Most of the banana varieties that we know today are descended from two wild species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The wild bananas had very little flesh and many seeds and reproduced sexually. Domestication of bananas began about 7,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea involving hybridisation and selection for fruit that had relatively more flesh to produce about 1,000 varieties that we know today. Most of these bananas are seedless and sterile therefore must be propagated vegetatively.
[caption id="attachment_1025795" align="alignnone" width="768"] Moko figs. -[/caption]
About 3,000 years ago bananas reached Africa through what is termed the Monsoon Exchange: the wind assisted trade networks between India and Africa across the Indian Ocean. In winter the west winds facilitated sailing from India across the Indian Ocean to the East African Coast as far as Madagascar, and in summer the Monsoon winds took the ships in the opposite direction. The rootstock or underground stem was taken as food on these long journeys and could also be used as planting material when the destination was reached.
African farmers developed about 120 more plantain cultivars (cultivated varieties) and 60 more cooking banana cultivars, thus they became one of the most important staple foods on the continent.
The next stage on the journey came with the maritime explorations of Portugal and Spain in the fifteenth century. When the explorers arrived in the Canary Islands and Madeira they encountered sugar for the first time. Enslaved Africans were taken to these islands to work on the sugar plantations along with their basic foods, plantains and bananas. These among other African grown crops formed the staples taken on the slave ships on their journeys acros the Atlantic to Santo Domingo and the New World.
[caption id="attachment_1025794" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Red-skinned mataburro. -[/caption]
Bananas and plantains are often referred to as figs in Trinidad and Tobago and the green ones of any type are used for cooking and called green figs. I have always wondered why and thi
