this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
599 points (99.3% liked)

memes

22175 readers
2514 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Thorry@feddit.org 12 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Wasn't that whole gros michel story made up after the fact? Those bananas are still available, just more expensive. People who've eaten them have reported them tasting a bit more like the chemical banana taste, but not really the same. And the taste is highly dependent on how ripe the banana is. I think the actual story was the chemical banana was close enough and cheap and easy to produce. People also liked it, even though it didn't really taste like bananas. So it became the de facto banana taste. In small amounts the taste is a lot closer, but people prefer the higher amounts because of the more intense taste.

It even says as much on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+Gros+Michel+has+a%2Cseeming+version+of+the+Cavendish

A food history myth is that artificial banana flavor was specifically developed from the Gros Michel, but isoamyl acetate is a simple compound and was not based on any specific cultivar.

It's all a little fuzzy but essentially the Gros Michel was THE cultivar of banana, but it became susceptible to a disease. It still exists, but can't be farmed like it used to be.

The chemical was developed and likened to the Gros Michel variety in mind for it being called 'banana' flavor since the Cavendish (i think?) hadn't yet replaced the world market as the banana cultivar of choice.