This is Bananas

"What does it mean to eat bananas?" This question asked in the preface of John Soluri's Banana Cultures is what I tried to get at while interviewing my Tico mom. In Banana Cultures, we learned about what it meant to eat bananas in the United States during a period when bananas were still new and tropical. The purpose of these questions were to figure out what it means to eat bananas now in Costa Rica. When I asked how bananas were eaten, my mom said always fresh and sometimes as part of desserts. This compares with how bananas were advertised to the U.S., as a fresh, convenient fruit. I have bananas many mornings with my cereal or a piece of bread. These bananas are always set on a plate, and still in the peel. My mom fixed me plantains one night for supper, and I didn't like them. I haven't seen them since (except for every time I am eating with my Gringo friends). My mom said that plantains are eaten cooked. Obviously, this makes them less convenient than bananas, with a lot more thinking involved as to the preparations. When I asked if bananas were an important fruit in Costa Rica, I was told yes and that they were the "mejor" fruits that were exported. I think she meant that bananas are exported more than other fruits. When I asked how Costa Rican history is tied to banana cultivation, my mom simply said that economically, bananas have played a large role in their history. Also, she said that the cultivation of bananas has helped their country progress because of their relationship with the U.S. This ties in with the reading about how the U.S. influence spread when these large U.S. banana companies set up camp in Costa Rica and other tropical countries.

I have noticed in my house that we have a bowl of very ripe, sometimes practically just brown, bananas in a bowl. So, it wasn't surprising at Mas por Menos to see that instead of a lot of green, not quite ripe bananas, most of them were very ripe. This makes sense since we have learned that most Costa Rican families go to the store a few times a week to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. While my attention was drawn to these ripe bananas, there were also a variety of ripe, unripe, small, and large bananas. This was very different than what you would see at a supermarket in the U.S., where all the bananas appear to be twin sisters. They are not quite ripe, and an average size, and all look perfect like they haven't travelled a long distance to get there. The plantains were laid out with the vegetables, and interestingly, there were different types of them as well. The selling of bananas and plantains with different ones to choose from, shows how important they are to the culture. Bananas dominated the fruit section, and this alone shows how popular they are that they need so much room. Bananas are obviously a large part of the culture in Costa Rica today, just like they became a part of the culture of the U.S. after World War II. While bananas became a part of the culture in the U.S. mainly through advertising methods, in Costa Rica they are part of the culture simply because they are a good fruit, played a large role in the economy, and with national pride over a product that is grown in Costa Rica.