Bunches o' Bananas

Bananas are one of the world's most popular and widely eaten fruits. From experience I know that they are eaten extensively in Trinidad and Tobago, and in the United States. As a result of being such a hugely popular commodity, the industry associated with the cultivation of bananas must be very valuable and profitable in banana producing countries. Based on previous trips to the Caribbean coast and a visit to a banana plantation, the conclusion can be made that bananas are in fact extremely important to the Costa Rican economy and to the people themselves. Besides bananas, plantains in the banana family are also very popular. Plantains are bigger than bananas buy are usually cooked before serving.

In my host family bananas are very popular, although the do not buy bananas and keep them in the house. This is because they know I am not a huge fan of bananas so the either don't buy or buy in small enough quantity that they think I do not notice. However bananas are like my host family, especially by my tica mom. My tica mom said she eats a banana everyday, whether it is from home of from the store. As she was telling me this information she started to eat a banana. When bananas are eaten they are generally eaten fresh and ripe. Whenever she gets them, my tica mom buys the bananas a little bit green, and then she leaves them to ripen a bit before eating them. Plantains on the other hand are cooked before eating. They are mainly fried when my host mom cooks them. Plantains are more popular and common in my household than bananas are. We never seem to run out of plantains and they are eaten with every meal, breakfast and dinner. 

In keeping with our recent readings on the banana industry in Central America and Costa Rica this video contains videos of a place where bananas are sold. I had to sneak my camera out to take the short video as there were several workers, and the activity itself was technically illegal. At the Mas por Menos where I recorded the video, there were really three different kinds of bananas. The difference is in the way that is sold. If a shopper wanted they could choose to buy an individual banana or by the kilo, they were not forced to buy the whole bunch. This was an interesting dynamic because compared to the US or Trinidad, I thought that the bananas in the banana section were sort of messy and thrown about, but that was because people could buy the bananas that they wanted. Also based on the video, the bananas here in Costa Rica were sold without any packaging or reference to a company where it was bought.

Also, although I am not too familiar with bananas in general, I did not once see any of the major banana companies that operate in Costa Rica in the supermarket. Based on previous readings in class about the boom of the banana industry, we know that banana companies such as Chiquita and Dole exist and operate in Costa Rica, but the fact that their products are not even in local groceries implies something different. It implies that the international banana companies only grow the bananas for export to American and European market and not for local consumption. The bananas that were on sale were obviously not of the top quality bananas like the ones in the US as many of the bananas that were being sold were damaged and bruised and so I do not think that they would have been able to make the journey to US markets. So similar to the coffee industry, it seems as though the 2nd best bananas are the ones left behind for local consumption.

One last caviot, i found it interesting that those were they only bananas or banana merchandise in the store. After sneaking this little video of the bananas on sale, I looked around the store for potential banana products or canned bananas but found nothing, except for the occasional fruit juice that had banana as one of the fruits mixed into the flavor. The lack of top quality bananas in the supermarket and this quick point that there really is not a lot of banana merchandise suggests to me that bananas as a food really are not that important in Costa Rica as other countries or other foods like coffee. Bananas most likely have more importance economically because banana companies employ thousands of local workers, than as a popular food in Costa Rica.