Those of you who are over 50: has it ever occurred to you that bananas don't taste as good as they did when you were a kid?
 
I had assumed it was a symptom of maturing tastes, or dying taste buds. Then in 1992 I started making annual trips to the tropics and got to eat "real" bananas straight from the bush. (No, they're not trees, they're bushes. They get hacked off to the ground after harvesting and a new plant grows from the shoots. The cycle is remarkably quick, too - they're bearing fruit again in just a few weeks.)
 
Turns out, there is a reason why bananas don't taste as good anymore. And it's not why you think. It's not because they're picked as green rocks for easier transport. We're actually eating an entirely different strain of bananas nowadays. Here's the story...

I never liked bananas.

I went on vacation to Puerto Rico a few years ago and tasted bananas that were better than I could have imagined. Maybe they weren't Cavendish. It was like the time I played a $75,000 Steinway in a local piano store.
 
I like bananas, so I hope they develop more varieties.
 
 

I knew about this. We'll see what they come up with. May have to move to St. Lucia. They have delicious little bananas there. Only problem is...100% of the export crop goes to the U.K. 

I recall a small delicious variety of banana when I was in Madeira which I understood was unique to the island.

bitflipper
Those of you who are over 50: has it ever occurred to you that bananas don't taste as good as they did when you were a kid?
 
I had assumed it was a symptom of maturing tastes, or dying taste buds. Then in 1992 I started making annual trips to the tropics and got to eat "real" bananas straight from the bush. (No, they're not trees, they're bushes. They get hacked off to the ground after harvesting and a new plant grows from the shoots. The cycle is remarkably quick, too - they're bearing fruit again in just a few weeks.)
 
Turns out, there is a reason why bananas don't taste as good anymore. And it's not why you think. It's not because they're picked as green rocks for easier transport. We're actually eating an entirely different strain of bananas nowadays. Here's the story...

That was interesting!  (And James is just weird!  )
 

Interesting - it seems that I never ate a real banana in my life. 
 
That being said, having watched a lot of 70's TV footage recently, I do notice that there is a reason why I can't stand more than 2 minutes of contemporary TV or even very informative videos such as this one. I do miss the more natural debit, the pauses and the dynamics...

"Hey Natasha!  Get Moose and Squirrel!"

I was quite surprised by the size of the seeds when I first ate natural bananas in Thailand. Bananas are about 30% of the size here compared to the uk, much nicer tasting.