DistantNews
Support us
🇸🇪 Sweden /Culture & Society

There Are No Innocent Bananas

From Svenska Dagbladet · () Swedish

Translated from Swedish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • The essay presents the banana as a familiar food with scientific, commercial and colonial associations.
  • It notes Fyffes’ first Fairtrade label on a banana in 2000 and the company’s later sustainability claims.
  • The piece also recalls a 17th-century Swedish description of bananas that made no mention of their yellow color.

The banana looks simple, but the essay argues that almost nothing about it is. It is a berry called a fruit, a ready-made snack and a prop for slapstick, while also carrying the baggage of colonialism.

The piece follows the fruit’s transformation into a symbol of sustainability. In 2000, Fyffes placed the first Fairtrade label on Musa acuminata, the yellow banana. The company pursued what the essay calls strategic sustainability and said it had reached the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda goals by 2018.

That image has pushed the banana wars of the 1990s, including the conflict involving Chiquita, into the background. Sustainability has become the banana’s closest companion, even as the fruit appears to grow yellower with the years.

The essay reaches back to 1667, quoting Swedish traveler Nils Matsson Kiöping after his years as a sailor with the Dutch East India Company. He wrote that a kind of fruit called pisang or bananas grew throughout India and was tasty and beautiful. Notably, he did not mention the color yellow.

Kiöping’s story ends far from the polished image of the modern banana. After his travels, he died impoverished in Stockholm’s dirty inner waterways. The banana’s cheerful appearance, the essay suggests, does not make its history innocent.

Throughout India grows a kind of fruit called pisang, or bananas, which is tasty and beautiful.

· Nils Matsson KiöpingThe 17th-century traveler’s description is quoted to show that he did not mention the banana’s yellow color.
About this summary

Originally published by Svenska Dagbladet in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog