Bananas are not really my favorite fruit but they sure are my husbands and I don’t think anyone knows better about the history of banana as food. Here are some interesting information I picked up on the history of banana from my husband.
 

 

Banana is supposed to have originated in Malaysia around 2000 B.C. The original wild banana that existed during this time was not sweet and needed cooking before being consumed.
 
The literary references to bananas can be seen in Buddhist texts which dates back to 600 BC
 
It is in 327 B.C. when Alexander the Great sees and tastes bananas for the first time from the banana crops found in the Indian valley.  The banana was introduced to his vast empire and thus he is considered responsible for bringing the banana to the western countries.
 
Around 63 BC banana cultivation kick starts in Rome because of Antonius  Musa , the personal doctor of the then Roman emperor Octavius Augustus. From 63 to 14 BC the cultivation of this exotic African fruit as was known to them developed rapidly. It is no wonder that the banana is also called Musa Acuminate where acuminate refers to the long-pointed or tapering flowers from which the fruit is formed.
 
Around 200 AD it was found that organized banana plantations also existed in China.
 
It is in 650 AD that the Islamic Conqueror brought the banana back to Palestine, Madagascar and other Middle East Countries from where the Arabic merchants brought it to Africa. Africa already had banana cultivations and various genetic mutations lead to different types of bananas being cultivated.
 
By around 1502 AD the Portuguese and Spanish sailors took the fruit from Africa and brought it to Canary Islands. They start the first banana plantation in the Caribbean and Central America. The English name banana was most probably derived from the Guinean name of this fruit "banema".
 
A Spanish Friar Tomas de Berlanga brought to the western hemisphere the first set of banana root stocks out of which a Chinese variety was sent to England. It was named "Cavendish" after the Duke of Devonshire's family.  
 
The banana as we know today was known to no one until the 1836 AD. It was during this year that a Jamaican, Jean Francois Poujot produced the mutant yellow sweet banana from the crossing of the green and red cooking bananas (modern day plantains). Once he tasted this sweet banana which could be eaten raw without cooking he quickly initiated cultivation of this new variety and owing to the new mutants sterility this was done by using offshoots from the base of the plants. Thus was born the sweet bananas of today. According to some food historians the banana was also the first fruit to be farmed by man.
 
They were then imported from the Caribbean to New Orleans, Boston, and New York, and were treated as exotic desserts that have to be eaten on a plate using a knife and fork. (Guess they never saw a monkey consume them before ..I am sure it would have killed all the romanticism they attached to the fruit. )
 
In 1876 AD the sweet banana is introduced as an exotic fruit dessert to America at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was actually covered in foil and then sold for 10 cents. Soon they grew in popularity and became a staple fruit.
 
By the 1900 AD the import and export of banana is commercialized and the fruit becomes an important commodity.
 
Today banana can be found in almost all tropical and subtropical regions. It is consumed in possibly every corner of the world and is often enjoyed as a dessert or snack or even simply baked for breakfast. Here are some interesting banana recipes you can enjoy at home.
 
Image Credit
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesec/