Blog #9

Bananas in Costa Rica have a different connotation than other fruits and vegetables here. Bananas and plantains are so similar but they are eaten in completely different ways. Bananas are eaten as a fruit, a side with breakfast or a snack. Plantains are apart of a meal, normally a side dish such as mashed potatoes. Bananas are never cooked unless they are maybe in a fruity dessert. Plantains are fried, eaten with salt, or cooked with cinnamon and oil for a sweet dish. Both bananas and plantains are sold at the markets but they have extremely different uses and connotations.

From my perspective, bananas are not as important in Costa Rican culture as plantains are. For example, the banana is an export food that is extremely important for the Tico economy but not very important for the every day consumer culture. Bananas are very present in Tican society but they do not carry the same connotation of pride as other products, such as coffee. Banana is instead somewhat linked with racism because of the darker skin color of the workers. But even so, bananas are consumed out of access, not because of their cultural significance. We’ve heard it time and again: the best bananas are exported out of the country. On the other hand, plantains are not as common as an export. Granted this is my guarded US vantage point, but the whole point of this analysis is to use and challenge that vantage point. Plantains are considered apart of the Tico casado, apart of those main dishes of Costa Rica. From my experiences with my family plantains are much more Costa Rican than bananas are. Plantains represent agriculture and specific Tican dishes while bananas represent the lower classes and economic international relations.

Bananas in Costa Rica(like the ones below) are different than the ones in the US. They are not unblemished, waiting to be ripened or large. They are small, brown spotted and bruised. Fruits and vegetables are extremely important in Costa Rica and I have to say, I don’t think bananas are different. I know they tend to be the last resort because other fruits are ripe for shorter time periods before they go bad, so bananas are saved for when the other fruits are done.

Bananas are an accepted part of Tician culture but, unlike coffee, they are not highlighted or stapled. They fall in line with the other just like in the US. The economic implications of bananas, I believe, are much more prominent than the cultural ones in Costa Rica. Ticans are inspired by their food, but bananas do not seem to be one of these inspiring products. I think this has a lot to do with the international importance given to bananas-they are not unique to Costa Rica-and the social significance-where bananas represent lower classes.

I have to say, after seeing the differences between coffee/chocolate in the US and in Costa Rica. The similar attitudes toward bananas only prove to me how they are viewed in a very unimportant light-except economically. As a result, I have to conclude that the reason bananas are still present in Costa Rica is because of their economic and nutritional uses-not their cultural uses-which greatly contradicts most of our current studies.