Banana Culture

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 899, 17 February 1930, Page 8

Banana Culture

FRUIT ON AUCKLAND MARKET

THE comparatively high cost of tropical fruit in Auckland and the occasional scarcity of supplies are subjects of never-failing concern to housewives and casual buyers alike. Merchants, too, face many difficulties and the shipment of bananas alone is fraught with risk. Proof of the existence of transport and marketing problems is afforded by the recent fate of the Maui Pomare’s banana cargo which has been dumped as unfit for human consumption. As a result of this bananas are again in short supply.

“Have a banana,” runs the catchcry, but, one may add, it is a case of finding the fruit in a barren market. Can you tell a good banana when you see—or taste one? Moreover, did you know that the finest bananas in the world grow in Niue Island, a dependency of New Zealand, and one of those which seems fated to suffer from intermittent communication with us. Niue bananas are the world’s best. They are grown on limestone land, and because of this the sweetness of flavour and softness of texture combine to make perfection. Many years ago Fiji sent us enormous shipments of the yellow wrapped fruit; as many as 21,000 cases in some shiploads. Now 14.000 cases is a very large shipment. Yet our population, and therefore possibly our market, has almost doubled. It is not too much to say that today the. banana is a luxury. BUYTNG BY WEIGHT In Auckland we are somewhat uncommon in that we purchase the fruit by the pound. Elsewhere bananas are sold by the dozen; but one does not need to rank among the oldest inhabitants to remember when bananas sold for a penny a pound retail. Yet this island product should be one of the staple foods of the Dominion, as it is in the Islands. The general practice is to eat the fruit raw. with or without preliminary mastication. However, bananas may be cooked in a variety of ways, and when cooked they are delicious and very nutritious. The Islands could grow sufficient fruit to permit the adoption of a “banana a day” slogan in this country.

In the past the native farmers in the Islands were usually honest in

their packing of fruit, but many importers believe that contact with Indians has taught them ways that are devious. It is customary to pack bananas in cases for quick sale, but in the Auckland marts the fruit is sold as consigned, and the cases not opened for inspection as are apples. Many a purchaser has become wrath on finding that is case of bananas has been built up with a skin of big fruit under which are concealed pounds of tiny “pickings,” undeveloped fruit about the size of our little finger that is found on the bottom of the fruit clumps on the trees. CLIMATIC NEEDS The banana plant does not thrive in New Zealand. It is supposed to be a native of East Asia, and it has relatives in Africa. The Island variety has been transplanted to Queensland so successfully that Fijian bananas have been driven off the Australian market. The almost idyllic life in the Pacific Islands has affected the banana tree as it has affected the human population, and has induced it to take life easily. The virility of the Asian plant has gone, and the Island banana has forgotten how to produce in the orthodox plant fashion —by seeding. It relies on human agency in transplanting, hut in return for this kindly help it bears greater masses of the luscious fruit. Some day scientists will learn to use all the banana food. They will find a use for the skin, and efficiently develop the leaf fibre. Then this wonder plant will be more important in world economy than wheat, and the grower will not have to bear the expense of producing and marketing fruit —and then see it dumped in the sea, as has been the case in Auckland. T.W.