The Great Banana Battle of 2010 - January 12, 2010

Welcome to the first and last Great Banana Battle. I thought I would take the opportunity to pit three different types of bananas against one another. Rest assured that I’m not a sadist who enjoys banana-related violence. The main reason being that only one type of banana (Cavendish) dominates the US market. That’s right, the bananas you see in the supermarket in the US are all the same. Somewhere along the way, probably in between Dole bribing corrupt government officials, producers deemed monoculture appropriate. So only one banana for US customers.



Australia, however, natively grows bananas. And Ozzies enjoy more variety. In the Cairns produce market we purchased three different types of bananas (in the picture from left to right): (1) Cavendish; (2) Sugar; and (3) Monkey.

1. Cavendish: The banana we all (were forced to) know and (potentially) love. The Cavendish is the longest of the three bananas. It has a fleshy consistency and a mild taste. You are probably familiar with the taste.

2. Sugar: The sugar banana held the most promise. The stand selling the sugar banana claimed that the sugar banana had a very sweet taste. We purchased a few green and unripe sugar bananas. I made the mistake of attempting to eat an unripe sugar banana. The unripe one was difficult to open and annoyingly sticky. The taste was even worse: it tasted like shoe leather. Discouraged but not defeated, I left the sugar banana to ripen. After the sugar banana ripened, I gave it shot. The sugar banana was easier and less sticky to open. The taste didn’t improve much; though the sugar banana was sweeter than the Cavendish.

3. Monkey: The monkey banana could have been purchased on novelty alone. Both the name and the size are comical. The monkey banana was easy to open. The taste surprised me. Out of all three, the monkey banana had a sweet and banana-like taste. I really enjoyed eating one.

Results: The trophy of Best Banana in the Great Banana Battle goes to the Monkey Banana. Runner-up goes to the Sugar Banana (only after ripening). Consolation prizes go to the Cavendish.

That's it for today. Sorry for the uneventful post. We basically drove all day through a lot of nothing. The trip measured about 730 km in total and lasted about 8 hours. I'd be lying if I said we enjoyed all that driving.

Locals had excited us to the prospect of spotting kangaroos along our so very long drive. But to our dismay we saw none.

The only noteworthy event was sampling crocodile and kangaroo meat. We stopped in Rockhampton to eat at the Stonegrille. The restaurant came recommended because it offers a sample of the local fauna. Plus you have the ability to cook the meat (on a stone grill, appropriately enough) to your liking.





The meats definitely had distinct tastes. The crocodile is the white-ish meat. Both Nicolle and I agreed that the crocodile meat looked similar to fish but tasted more like chicken. The kangaroo was the favorite. The kangaroo meat (upper left under the steam) had a tender, sinewy consistency to it. I thought it even tasted like it had a little cheese in it. The remaining meat (upper right) was beef. The beef tasted pretty good too.

Thankfully, for the next two days we will enjoy being chauffered around on Fraser Island (albeit in an airconditioned 4WD bus). Fraser Island should be beautiful, it's the largest sand island in the world. The island also claims some impressive fresh water lakes too. We hope the "death island" moniker (for including several ways to die by sharks, snakes, surf, dingoes, spiders, etc.) is just a myth. We'll let you know. We hope.