Why are all bananas from Ecuador? How do bananas grow in nature and how are they grown for sale? What is a banana

BANANA(Musa paradisiaca, Musa sapientum)

Scientific characteristics:
Kingdom: Plants
Department: Angiosperms
Class: Monocots
Order:Zingeberales
Family: Banana
Genus: Banana

Story:
Today, the diet of a Westerner is unthinkable without bananas, although the banana was almost the last to arrive in Europe - after cocoa, coffee and tobacco.

One of the first Europeans to appreciate the taste of bananas was Alexander the Great. In the year 327 before Christ, the great commander tasted the exotic fruit during his Indian campaign and was delighted, as the legend says.

Dozens of varieties of banana were cultivated in India, and the earliest references to this plant are found in ancient Buddhist texts dating back to the sixth century BC. The first plantations of perennial grasses of the banana family appeared around the second century BC in China. From China and India, the plant began its victorious march to other Asian countries. Arab slave traders and ivory hunters brought the banana to Africa, where the plant took root and became so widespread that the myth about the African origin of the banana still lives on.

In the early 15th century, Portuguese colonialists brought the banana to the Canary Islands and then to the New World. The Franciscan monk Tomaso de Berlanga, the future archbishop of Panama, founded the first banana plantation near his monastery on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo in 1516. However, only slaves and cattle were fed bananas; the conquistadors did not eat the plebeian fruit, which had already spread throughout Central America.

Until 1866, the banana remained unknown to residents of North America and Europe. Travelers who visited banana countries excitedly talked about the wonderful fruit, sweet as sugar and satisfying as bread, but the banana was considered unsuitable for transportation, since it ripened even before it could be dragged along the tropical off-road to the nearest seaport.

And again, immigrants from Eastern Europe came to the aid of the sluggish colonialists. It remains to be seen how long the banana revolution would have been delayed if not for two emigrants - Samuil Zhemurai and Minor Keith.

Having visited Latin America and appreciated the commercial qualities of an unpretentious agricultural crop that produces crops all year round, they got a loan from a bank and began to build communication routes. First, a network of narrow-gauge railways covered the previously inaccessible jungles of Costa Rica and Ecuador, then the gigantic territories of what are now Colombia, Panama, Honduras and Guatemala.

The American premiere of the “banana for the people” took place in 1876 in Philadelphia, at an exhibition dedicated to the centennial anniversary of the declaration of independence of the United States. Each fruit was wrapped in waxed paper and cost 10 cents - the same as a liter of milk or a glass of beer. Soon, all of North America was hooked on bananas: just four years after the exhibition, the United States imported 16 million banana blossoms.

It was the so-called banana “inflorescences” that remained the unit of measurement in the banana trade until the fifties of the 20th century. A standard “inflorescence” - or, more precisely, a huge trunk dotted with banana bunches - should have contained at least three hundred fruits. In 1951, the “inflorescences” were replaced by an eighteen-kilogram flat box, which remains the standard packaging to this day.

Meanwhile, a real banana fever has gripped Latin America. The tropical fruit, once brought by the conquistadors, turned out to be salvation for the Latin American continent. In the most remote and forgotten corners of God, plantations were laid out, electricity and telegraph lines were installed, schools for children, trading shops and bars were opened. In 1899, banana producers from Latin America united to form the United Banana Company. The company remains the world's leading exporter of bananas to this day - they are sold under the Chiquita brand.

Harry Lemke, a merchant of colonial goods from the city of Hamburg, stopped in the corner of his port warehouse and began to sniff. An unusually sweet aroma spread from behind a pile of empty tea boxes piled in the corner. Lemke ordered the boxes to be removed. Imagine the amazement of all those present when a trunk covered with fragrant, shining yellow fruits was discovered in the corner. A couple of weeks ago one of the captains brought fruit from an overseas voyage. Desperately green and tasteless, they did not make much of an impression and were thrown into the far corner. Two months later, bananas appeared in the assortment of the colonial goods store "Lemke and Sons".

The store was located on the most luxurious Hamburg promenade - the Jungfernstieg embankment, known throughout Germany as the “bride fair”. Young girls of marriageable age walked along the Alster and were not at all embarrassed to eat bananas - on the contrary, the new delicacy became the squeak of the season. Fashionable stores sold banana-shaped handbags, banana-shaped scarves and shawls, and even hats decorated with papier-mâché bananas.

In 1903, the first cargo ship with a refrigerated hold rolled off the stocks. It was called "Venus" and sailed between the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil and Marseille. It was Paris that became the banana capital of Europe, and it was in Paris that the “career” of the banana as an object of modern culture began. Banana has become an integral part of art salons. Salvador Dali and young Pablo Picasso appeared at the opening days with a banana in hand. Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau included bananas in their still lifes. Fashionable stores sold banana-shaped handbags and hats decorated with papier-mâché bananas. American dancer and singer Josephine Baker created a sensation with her performance in “Revue Negro” - a native of the city of Saint-Louis performed a semblance of a ritual African dance, dressed only in a skirt made of bananas. In the twenties, Josephine Baker's "banana dance" became widespread throughout Europe.

General characteristics:
Bananas are tall, sometimes gigantic herbs with powerful rhizomes and short stems. The leaves are very large, in the sheaths, which form a multilayer tube, there is a false stem. Young leaves emerge through it, and then an inflorescence resembling a huge brush. Flowers are unisexual and bisexual. The fruit is polyspermous, berry-shaped, thick-skinned; in cultivated forms it is often devoid of seeds (plants reproduce only vegetatively) and reaches 15 cm in length and 3-4 cm in diameter. Up to 300 such fruits can develop on one axis; their total weight reaches 50-60 kg. After fruiting, the above-ground part of the banana dies off.

Bananas belong to the group of sweet fruits. They are famous all over the world. Consumed raw. The fruit of a cultivated banana consists of 40% peel and 60% powdery sweet pulp; the seeds are not developed. The pulp of the fresh fruit contains 14-22% sugars, 5-8% starch, and up to 1.5% protein. The aroma of banana fruits depends on isovaleric-novo-isoamyl and acetic-isoamyl esters. The fruits are consumed fresh and dried; banana flour, canned food, marmalade, syrup, and wine are prepared from them.

Some types of banana have fruits with hard, mealy, unsweetened pulp; They are used mainly for livestock feed, and are eaten only in fried and boiled form. Textile or spinning banana is grown as a technical plant ( M. textilis), from the false trunks of which light, strong fiber is extracted, the so-called. Manila hemp (abaca), used for making marine ropes, fishing tackle, etc. Japanese banana, or decorative ( M. basjoo), grown on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Crimea as an ornamental plant. How a food and textile plant is grown in Africa Abyssinian banana (M. ensete), which is now more often placed in the genus Ensete ( E. ventricosum).

The banana is cut when it is still green. Ripening occurs on the way to the consumer country or in warehouses. Bananas are delivered to Ukraine by sea on powerful refrigerated vessels, the refrigeration units of which allow the fruit to be preserved in a state of “removable” ripeness throughout the entire transportation period.

Production:

Storage:
The shelf life is determined by the condition of the batch upon arrival at its destination and the choice of film in which the bananas are packaged. In the case of using "polypack" film, the maximum shelf life is 28 days from the date of cutting the fruit, "banavac" and "high density" - 40-50 days (due to the modified gas environment during transportation and storage). The safety of bananas during transportation is achieved by maintaining a constant pulp temperature at 12-14 °C. At temperatures below 10 °C, bananas spoil.

Main banana producing countries:
India, Brazil, China, Ecuador, Philippines, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Thailand, Burundi.

Banana ripeness chart:

Evenly green - normal color upon receipt

Green-yellow - ready for wholesale delivery

Yellow with green noses is a good color to sell.

Evenly yellow is the ideal color to sell.

Yellow with brown spots - fully ripe, maximum nutritional content, must be sold immediately.

Did you know that three out of ten bananas eaten in the world grow in Ecuador?

Ecuador is the world's leading banana exporter, producing unsurpassed bananas of high quality and exquisite taste.
At the same time, all production processes are carried out in accordance with international environmental protection standards. The good climate and fertile soils mean that plantations in Ecuador require half the fungicide cycle compared to banana production in other countries.

Bananas in Ecuador are a constant presence throughout the year, with approximately 180,000 cultivated hectares and 12% of the labor force.

The banana varieties grown in Ecuador are Veleri, Grand Cavendish, Grand Nain and Lacaten. Main markets: USA, European Union, Russia, New Zealand, Far East, Japan and Chile. Ecuador also exports processed foods such as banana puree, banana flour, dehydrated bananas and banana chips. Likewise, Ecuador offers organic bananas, also available throughout the year.

Consumer portrait:

"Bananas are eaten by both young and old, whether rich or poor"
But still, banana consumption depends on many factors - demographic, social and many others. In many ways, the culture of consumption is also determined by the country in which a person lives.

Why do we eat bananas?

Banana is the king of all tropical fruits. The peel protects the fruit from external influences, and the fruit itself has a wonderful aroma, wonderful taste and is easily digestible.

Moreover, bananas are an essential source of potassium in the diet (2000 – 4000 mg of Potassium per day). 100 grams of banana contains about 370 mg of potassium.

The effects of potassium on human physiology have been demonstrated for many years, and for this reason, bananas are the choice of many people. Due to its high content in the fruit and peel, potassium is considered the most important nutrient in bananas. Therefore, in order for the quality of the fruit to be high, careful control over the use of potassium carbonate is necessary. The harvested fruit takes a large amount of potassium from the fields. To replace the loss of potassium in fields, at least 500 kg of potassium carbonate per hectare is needed, even in soils rich in potassium.

Which bananas do consumers like?

Bananas are grown in three provinces: El Oro, Manabí And Guayas. Actually, the local planters were waiting for us in the latter. On the way, it already became clear that the banana capital of the world - Machala- We won’t make it before dark, and therefore we’ll shorten the path so as not to miss the light. The plantations themselves look ordinary: imagine a corn field divided into squares and surrounded by ditches with water. The plant itself resembles a palm tree, with a powerful trunk and giant leaves, ranging from 2 to 12 meters in height. At the same time, the banana tree is officially considered... a grass, and its fruits are a berry.

Some kind of strange botany, well, we don’t care. Let it be grass, let it be a berry. These unusual plants are found only in tropical climates, in heat and humidity. They live as a family: a mother plant, a father plant and a child plant. They begin to bear fruit in the 9th month. As soon as a banana is ready to give birth, it blooms a flower like this.

More precisely, an inflorescence or brush on which the flowers are actually located. Fruits (the well-known yellow bananas) develop only from female flowers. The male ones quickly wither and fall off. This is such injustice. While the berries ripen, every week they change color: lilac, yellow, white, purple. Over time, several hands with fingers. The weight of each brush is about 50 kilograms. As soon as the brush is cut off, the banana tree dies.

The planters lured us into the very wilderness of their domain. I do not know why. Probably to make us feel like bananas ourselves. By the time we got to the shooting location, everyone was wet from head to toe. Every 5 minutes we were doused with automatic waterers: bananas can’t do without water, and they can’t live in water - for a maximum of 48 hours, and therefore they are watered point-by-point and repeatedly. I was tired of all this, I decided to hide under a faded banana, I thought I had found a secluded place. Where there! Was drenched. Pointwise and repeatedly. As if someone was taking aim. My colleagues also had a hard time: Svetochka groaned all the time from unexpected jets, Oleg constantly wiped the camera, Nastya silently endured, and Sasha photographed all this :)

Not only are bananas strange, they are also capricious: cover them from heat and cold, wrap them in film, put holes in this film so that they can breathe, and so that they do not spoil, dress them up - put them on each hand nun collar(pictured: white corrugated cardboard). From the plantation hands transported using a simple mechanical system: a wire onto which blocks on rollers are attached.

The collected fruits are washed and sorted. It is clear what it is: they are washed (only in running water) and sorted (size and density are measured).

After this, the bananas are smeared with some kind of glue. More precisely, not the bananas themselves, but the place where they come together to form hand. I don’t know what it’s called correctly. They smear them so that they don’t spoil on the way: they will reach our stores only after 2 months - that’s how long bananas languish in the holds of ships, where they ripen and turn yellow. The locals don't eat these bananas. This dessert varieties, export. They like others - platano(Spanish) Platano), which can be fried, boiled or steamed. Platano is red in color, unsweetened and tastes like potatoes. There is a special variety among them - rompe culo. I won’t translate the name – it’s indecent :)

Bananas are Ecuador's main export product. Global market share is about 20%. Therefore, banana plantations are protected more carefully than greenhouses with roses. In addition, cocoa is grown on banana plantations. But they do it cunningly: lemons, oranges or almonds are usually planted next to the cocoa tree. And while the cocoa beans are ripening, they have time to absorb the smells of neighboring trees. The chocolate produced from such raw materials is first-class: aromatic, with a soft and rich taste. That is why the Swiss prefer to quietly (but in tons!) buy chocolate raw materials for their factories in Ecuador. But I recommend real Ecuadorian chocolate. Delicious! Well, bananas too, if you want...

The ending follows...

© YES. Skorobutov, 2010.

On August 10, Ecuador celebrates Independence Day. 204 years ago, a people's liberation movement began in this small Latin American country, which allowed the state to get rid of the status of a Spanish colony. In honor of this date, RG selected 10 facts about the country that imagines itself as the mistress of the equator, the main supplier of bananas to Russia and the new homeland of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

1. Since 2008, you can come to Ecuador without a visa from any country in the world - usually for three months, after which guests need to decide on their future plans or go home. But the information that happy holders of a unique “citizen of the world passport” (a self-proclaimed organization with headquarters in Washington and Shanghai) are also allowed here turned out to be a myth. At least, ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden was unable to enter Ecuador with such a document.

2. The main attraction of Ecuador - the monument to the zero parallel - is located three hundred meters from the real equator. And while scientists continue to argue where exactly the treasured line lies, local authorities are doing their best to lure tourists to both places - the official and the alternative.

3. Galapagos tortoises, whose size is amazing (at a length of up to 1.8 meters, they can weigh 400 kilograms), can live up to two hundred years. But this is under the supervision of zoologists who are trying to preserve a number of completely unique subspecies that are in danger of extinction. And once upon a time, the fate of the now famous turtles was unenviable: sailors used them as “live canned food,” launching them into the holds of ships, where they vegetated for months without water or food until they ended up on the table.

4. Ecuador is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The Pacific coast of the country is located at the junction of two powerful layers, which from time to time literally run into each other. All this is accompanied by powerful tremors. According to some data, at least two hundred earthquakes with a magnitude above 4 on the Richter scale occur in the country every year. And if you take those whose epicenter was under water, you simply cannot count them - it reaches several dozen per day.

5. Ecuador became the first country in the world to abolish the death penalty in 1906. This decision spurred not only similar processes in other countries, but also a flow of migrant criminals who fled to Latin America in search of salvation from sentences of this kind.

6. Ecuador took part in World War II, taking the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. In this regard, an American military base was located on the territory of the country. By the way, in 1941, Ecuador itself actively fought - with neighboring Peru - for a piece of northern territories. The neighbors turned out to be more persistent and eventually took away part of the land in the mountain range. Interestingly, official Quito recognized this transfer of territories only in 1999.

7. The Guayas River, the pearl of the country's economic capital, was honored to be included on the coat of arms of Ecuador. And it’s no coincidence. This body of water is truly unique - twice a day, depending on the ebb and flow of the tides in the Pacific Ocean, the river changes direction, turning the waters back. During the rainy season - from January to March - the swollen Guayas even floods the Malecon embankment and comes close to the walls of the city administration.

8. The calling card of Ecuador - - was brought to Latin America in the 16th century by Portuguese colonialists from Africa. But now this culture seems local - at least, Russians are familiar only with Ecuadorian bananas. We receive 22 percent of all local exports from here. In general, according to experts, more than a tenth of the working population in the country is engaged in growing bananas. As for the myth about “fodder” bananas, until the 19th century they were actually fed to slaves and domestic animals. However, now all local counters are stocked with bananas, and there are dozens of dishes in which these fruits are used in one way or another.

9. Many Dutch roses that are sold in Russia are actually Ecuadorian. They simply come to us from the Netherlands, where the world's largest flower exchange operates. In Ecuador itself, such beautiful yellow-pink or even orange roses with huge buds are not sold - all the best is exported. But local merchants are completely devoid of our prejudices and deftly compose bouquets of six flowers.

10. For a European traveling around Ecuador, it is surprising to observe the morals of the local residents, who are not used to “bothering” over trifles. Young mothers here calmly breastfeed right on the street or on the bus, without covering either themselves or the baby, and the urinals in the men's toilets are located opposite the front door or a large mirror, from where all the simple actions of the visitor are perfectly visible. What can we say if a guard guarding the entrance to the presidential palace is able to pull a mobile phone out of his pocket right on guard and ask to call you back.

How bananas are grown and harvested. aslan wrote in May 13th, 2013

Bananas grow in most tropical regions of the world. They are picked while still green and ripen during transport. In most cases, bananas are sold not yet ripe, and therefore, to allow them to ripen, they need to be stored at room temperature. Today we will show you how bananas are harvested in Costa Rica

As soon as the ovaries on the bunch begin to form, a plastic cover is quickly pulled over it so that nothing falls on the ripening fruits, otherwise the bananas will spoil before they are cut. So they grow in plastic bags for eleven weeks. They do not reach full ripeness because they are transported from here to different parts of the world, and the fruits dry out during transportation.

The cut fruits are hung on a cable car for transport to the packing station.

There are no tricks when picking bananas; this requires two workers - the first cuts off the bunch with a long pole with a powerful cleaver screwed to the end, while the second carefully places it on his shoulder.

After cutting the bananas, the plant is cut down because it will no longer bear fruit. The planters are not upset about this: in place of the old banana (which, by the way, is not a tree, but grass) a new plant is planted, which in a few months will give a new harvest.

If the harvesting method has not changed over a century of mass banana cultivation, the delivery of the fruit to the factory has undergone a slight modernization. A bunch of bananas are sent there via these cable cars.

At the packaging station, the bunch is divided into bunches and placed in a pool of running water for 20-30 minutes to stop the release of juice from fresh cuts on the crown of the fruit, which can spoil the presentation of bananas.

Of all the fruits that reach the packaging station, only 5-6% do not pass quality control. The fruit, unsuitable for export, is sold at the local market and is used to make flour into banana bread or baby food.

Mostly women are involved in washing bananas.

Immediately after the bananas are removed from the pool, it is dried, wrapped in plastic, packed in branded boxes, and sent by sea: this is cheaper and more goods can be transported this way.

The journey of bananas to the USA takes 10 days, to Europe - 3 weeks, therefore half a kilo more fruits are packed into boxes with “European” bananas. By the time they get to our store, the box of bananas will shrink by exactly this half a kilo.

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