With these heatwaves, many cities in France, Italy and England are at times *hotter* than cities in the tropical SEA! No wonder the bananas are starting to fruit.
Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea.
If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite end of spectrum of TikTok, etc. Also, don't watch his "History of Sugar" documentary if you are feeling depressed. Instead watch the "History of Curry".
Didn't expect to see this on HN, but it's definitely one of my favorite YouTube channels. Most food history content online feels like straight up readings from Wikipedia, but OTR does actual research and interviews. The Golden Triangle episode where they interviewed the anti-CCP rebel veteran who was like 90 years old was pretty neat. Doesn't sound like it'd tie into food, but it does.
I have several banana plants in my garden in Southern England. Musa Sikkimensis and Musa Basjoo, 3+m tall at the moment.
Winters are too cold for them here. So either you heavily mulch them and they start from the roots every spring while the stems die in winter. Or you learn how to wrap the stems to protect them over winter.
It might be possible, or borderline to keep them unprotected within London but outside of there and inland temperatures can drop below -5C even in the South.
On the other hand, I think they have started growing tropical fruits like mangos and bananas in Sicily.
Last year ours bloomed, too. The problem is that it happens to late in the year and I can’t wrap that 5m high “tree” to protect from the cold. So the bananas were the size of your pinky. Next problem, once they bloom, they die. So yes, climate change is real. For comparison, we are located in south Germany near Stuttgart and we also have a fig tree and an olive tree in our garden.
I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.
Pawpaws are actually hermaphroditic not dioecious. Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination. However, you can save some male pollen until next year.
Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen. It's actually quite easy to collect. You can use a brush to sprinkle it on a female flower
In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.
Phoneutria are interesting animals. Needed to evolve defenses against the gluttony of monkeys. It must be a tasty spider.
It happens that we are monkeys also, so the venom is carefully designed against us.
There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge to grab a banana.
The spider is easily identified because it has four identical small frontal eyes arranged as a perfect square. Is big, bold and it warns before to attack [1] (most tarantulas are shy). And it jumps, of course. Can hide, once in a blue moon, in exported South American banana bunches (European breed bananas are spider free).
[1] If it raise the legs showing the yellow and black rings beneath is a clear warning saying "get lost right now, of I will land on your face"
Reminds me of Cecropia trees which are adapted to use some ant species as self defense. The trees live 20-30 years (the same length as an ant queen) and exudes a protein rich substance to feed the ants called Müllerian bodies. The ants in return aggressively protect the tree.
I grow a plantain orchard in South America and while i need to take double care of such spiders, they are not aggressive at all. I find them super cute and let visit my home as well. :)
The UK straddles the 55th parallel North. Due to the jet streams (and formerly, trade winds) carrying warm air from the Caribbean, it has often benefitted from a milder climate than other regions at similar latitudes: Alaska, Siberia, the Baltic states.
But this is wild. I am only in my 40s but I've seen the climate change significantly and it having a major impact on flora and fauna.
When I was a kid, English wine was a joke and now it's winning prizes because we have the same climate French vineyards did when I was a child. The idea of growing olives in the UK was laughable, but now in the South East of England it's starting to look commercially viable. Only 10 years ago I remember days with highs over 30C being rare, but we just had two weeks of them, accompanied by tropical nights (not dropping below 20C), for the first time I remember.
And now... bananas. Which is, pun intended, utterly bananas.
It feels too late to stop the worst of the damage, but the idea of this accelerating and getting worse is just astonishing to me, that within my lifetime I'd witness such a huge swing in climatology.
When I used to eat banana-flavored things (milkshakes, chocolate bars, etc), I always thought that the flavor was artifically inflated and tasted nothing like an actual banana...
...until I went to Fiji. Externally, the appearance of the banana would probably render it as waste in Western countries as it doesn't look nice and yellow - and looks close to what an overripe/rotten banana looks like, but gosh they tasted amazing!
It looks like Javanese call that banana as Gedhang Kluthuk (Stone Banana, direct translation).
The owner can use it to make a super delicious Rujak Cingur.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 37.7 ms ] thread> He said: "It's basically like having a mouth full of ball bearings with half a teaspoon of banana on them."
Maybe we can iterate on the texture some more here.
An incredibly dystopian way to minimise human-caused climate change and potential extinction for yet more species.
The History of the Banana
https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom
Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea.
If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite end of spectrum of TikTok, etc. Also, don't watch his "History of Sugar" documentary if you are feeling depressed. Instead watch the "History of Curry".
Winters are too cold for them here. So either you heavily mulch them and they start from the roots every spring while the stems die in winter. Or you learn how to wrap the stems to protect them over winter.
It might be possible, or borderline to keep them unprotected within London but outside of there and inland temperatures can drop below -5C even in the South.
On the other hand, I think they have started growing tropical fruits like mangos and bananas in Sicily.
I live in Hungary and they seem to be relatively widespread, if not as much as in southern Europe.
Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen. It's actually quite easy to collect. You can use a brush to sprinkle it on a female flower
There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge to grab a banana.
The spider is easily identified because it has four identical small frontal eyes arranged as a perfect square. Is big, bold and it warns before to attack [1] (most tarantulas are shy). And it jumps, of course. Can hide, once in a blue moon, in exported South American banana bunches (European breed bananas are spider free).
[1] If it raise the legs showing the yellow and black rings beneath is a clear warning saying "get lost right now, of I will land on your face"
Wong, 45, has presented for BBC series' Grow Your Own Drugs and Secrets of Your Food.
Curious what is the latest on genetic improvement of banana against Panama disease ?
But this is wild. I am only in my 40s but I've seen the climate change significantly and it having a major impact on flora and fauna.
When I was a kid, English wine was a joke and now it's winning prizes because we have the same climate French vineyards did when I was a child. The idea of growing olives in the UK was laughable, but now in the South East of England it's starting to look commercially viable. Only 10 years ago I remember days with highs over 30C being rare, but we just had two weeks of them, accompanied by tropical nights (not dropping below 20C), for the first time I remember.
And now... bananas. Which is, pun intended, utterly bananas.
It feels too late to stop the worst of the damage, but the idea of this accelerating and getting worse is just astonishing to me, that within my lifetime I'd witness such a huge swing in climatology.
When I used to eat banana-flavored things (milkshakes, chocolate bars, etc), I always thought that the flavor was artifically inflated and tasted nothing like an actual banana...
...until I went to Fiji. Externally, the appearance of the banana would probably render it as waste in Western countries as it doesn't look nice and yellow - and looks close to what an overripe/rotten banana looks like, but gosh they tasted amazing!
In other words, it used to be MUCH warmer in the northern latitudes.