Come join us U.S.-Fri-Sat for Día de Muertos, as AskHistorians becomes AskHistoricalFigures! Bring out your dead!
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It's true, today's American population much prefers our Hostess Twinkies to have vanilla filling instead of their original banana-flavored cream. But the idea that the bananas largely available in U.S. grocery stores are vastly inferior to "Big Mike" (Gros Michel, the banana so popular it had a nickname) is part legend, part nostalgia, and part flat-out historical error.
First, it's important to point out that Bike Mike didn't ascend to stardom because of good taste. In fact, it was also kind of a pain to grow, and Panama disease showed up just when the export banana market was exploding (1890s). The major driver for its initial popularity was the dominating role of shipping companies in controlling international banana trade. Although other varieties of bananas were sold in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century, the Gros Michel had the major transport advantage that it didn't really bruise or otherwise suffer from being jostled around in transit.
But as noted, Panama disease was already a problem as US banana consumption increased 300% from 1890 to 1911, and things were only getting worse. So the first real organization towards a change occurred in 1925, at a...well, a banana conference, in Chicago.
George Chittenden of the United Fruit Company proposed switching to a new cultivar, the Lacatan banana. The taste was indistinguishable from Big Mike, he claimed.
The public disagreed.
United Fruit's attempts to ship and sell Lacatan bananas in the southern U.S. fell far short of goals in terms of both number sold and revenue per banana that did get sold. There is some disagreement over whether the problem was that people actively disliked Lacatan bananas or they simply preferred Big Mike if those were also available. You might say people were...split on the matter.
Looks were also a problem. Chittenden, while defending the taste, observed, "The intermediate stage between green and dead ripe is not attractive to look at. Instead of a handsome green it is a rather dull gray-green." And a rival pointed out the problem with claiming that the two cultivars tasted the same: sure...but only if "the skin of the [Lacatan] has practically turned black..In this condition the fruit is uninviting to the eye and hard to sell."
So inasmuch as there was a problem with a Great Banana Swap, it was in the 1920s, it was the Lacatan, and there was in the end no actual swap.
The Valery Cavendish, on the other hand? Jean Paul Valles points out that the Valery actually was indistinguishable in terms of taste, as determined by actual taste tests. And there is some reason for it.
After the market depression of, well, That Depression and subsequently World War II, plus a second major banana-plant disease, Sigatoka, banana companies mobilized. They put significant effort into researching and hybridizing (is that a verb?) multiple potential cultivars.
The first attempted version failed both the financial and consumer test, producing not nearly enough cubic banana. But when the companies turned to different Cavendish cultivars, they had much better luck. Much better. People thought it tasted AND smelled better than the 1960s version of the Big Mike. And, of course, it played well in (literally) Peoria.
Despite the big advantage of the Cavendish being in the growing rather than the shipping, shippers were eager to adjust to the more easily bruised Valery by using crates and padding. Growers resisted a change from Big Mike, both in the 1920s and again in the 1960s, and attempted to convince banana companies that people disliked Cavendish bananas.
The nostalgic view of Big Mike is still fostered in pophist books like Lorna Piatti-Farnell's Banana: A Global History (the quality of books in this series...varies):
The famous banana of the pre-1950s era...was not only larger, but had a creamier texture and a richer flavour, as well as a visibly thicker skin.
But economic and environmental historians, with their pesky "primary" "sources," tell a different story.
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Further Reading, Because Why Not, Go Bananas Over It:
I think your premise might be flawed. According to an essay by John Soluri, published as part of the book Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas ed. by Steve Striffler et. al, the author states that the United Fruit Company, and the Standard Fruit Company (Dole), had spent decades developing a disease-resistant variety to replace the Gros Michel. Earlier, non-Cavendish attempts dating back to the 1920s didn't get the taste quite right. When they test-marketed early disease-resistant alternatives in the 1920s and 30s, United Fruit concluded that they had a "commercial disadvantage", because the better-tasting ones didn't always grow seedlessly, and the consistently seedless varieties were considered to be of little economic value since, "in no case is their quality equal to the fruits that are generally recognized by the public as 'bananas'".
It took until the 1950s before the development of a disease-resistant, tasty version of the banana was ready for commercial production that could replace the Gros Michel, and that was the Cavendish.
In the article "Accounting for Taste: Export Bananas, Mass Markets, and Panama Disease" by the same author, John Soluri, published in a 2002 edition of the journal Environmental History:
"The following year [i.e., in 1960], United Fruit's research department began testing various Cavendish cultivars (including Giant Cavendish, Valery, and Grand Nain) for yields, disease resistance, and shipping qualities. The company also funded a major banana-collecting expedition to South East Asia that assembled one of the world's largest collections of Musa varieties. In the early 1960s, the company test-marketed boxed Valery bananas in Midwest markets and received favorable consumer response. An independent taste panel reportedly found both the flavor and aroma of the Valery to be "distinctly superior" to that of the Gros Michel. By 1965, United Fruit had converted nearly all of its Central American production to Valery and other Cavendish varieties."
According to Soluri's article, major reasons for the delay in conversion wasn't primarily an issue with the taste. Soluri argues that the banana companies knew they had an acceptable alternative taste-wise in the Cavendish, but the Gros Michel stayed rip longer, tended to grow in bigger bunches and had higher yields per acre, and didn't bruise as easily during transport, so it was more economical. Those problems with the Cavendish had to be overcome before it would become an economically viable replacement. Once United Fruit was satisfied that the Cavendish had overcome these problems, they started test-marketing different varieties and then made the switch. And when they made that switch, they began mass production of Cavendish varieties that had test-marketed better than the Gros Michel.
The popular press of the time of the conversion tended to agree with the assessment that the Cavendish was either preferable or not any worse than the Gros Michel. A May 2, 1963, article in the Pittsburgh Press giving various recipes for banana-based deserts wrote: "Gros Michel is the most prolific, commercially most important of Western Hemisphere bananas. Millions of bunches of Gros Michel go to all parts of the world...Another important variety (No. 2 in production in the Americas) is the Cavendish, a delicious, high quality fruit."
A news wire article published in the July 18, 1976, edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer about selecting produce at the supermarket featured an interview with Kenny Kimball, director of produce at Publix Supermarkets. Publix had only recently discontinued carrying the Gros Michel ("two years ago...the Panama Disease wiped out that variety") and Kimball said that consumers needed to be aware that the new variety ripened faster, so they should put their Cavendishes in the refrigerator once they are ripe. Apart from that, "It has a beautiful flavor, just as good as the Gros Michel."
A July 8, 1976, article in the Christian Science Monitor about the ubiquity of bananas in the Bermuda diet noted that Bermudians had long preferred Cavendish varieties:
"Bermuda bananas are unlike any sold in North American markets. They are not only smaller but sweeter, with more flavor and texture from being grown in Bermuda soil.
"With the botanical name of dwarf Cavendish, the Bermuda banana originated in the Canary Island and was introduced from the Bahamas in 1616. Since then they have become one of the most useful crops, surpassed only by citrus.
"While other imported fruits and vegetables are readily accepted, Bermudians won't accept bananas imported during slack growth periods. The Gros Michel variety, the large, brand-named bananas seen so often in North America, might as well be old inner tubes as far as Bermudians are concerned."
EDIT: Typos.