Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Bananavardier Cocktail or Mocktail, inspired by the formal introduction of bananas to the U.S. on this date, June 5, 1876.
Extra, Extra, Get Your New Banana!
Among the many new & unique attractions at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 were… the bananas. Wrapped in foil and sold for a dime each, they were a novelty for many Americans who had never seen them before.
Yes, Spanish and Portuguese colonists brought banana shoots from the Canary Islands and West Africa to the Caribbean and South America in the early 1500s. But most Americans in the continental U.S. had never seen or tasted them. So the Philly Exposition was really the first introduction of bananas to most of the Unites States.
In the decades that followed the Exposition, the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was responsible for introducing many more Americans to the fruit, promoting the banana in their literature, and distributing them throughout the country.
The story of the UFC begins in 1871, when cattle rancher Minor C. Keith first planted bananas alongside the tracks of the national railroad in Costa Rica. By the 1880s, Keith was the dominant banana trader in Central America. In the same decade, Lorenzo Dow Baker founded Boston Fruit, the first company to import bananas into the U.S. Keith’s enterprise merged with Boston Fruit in 1899 to create the United Fruit Company.
During the next decade, United Fruit Company’s Great White Fleet, painted white to reflect the intense sun, carried bananas from Central America to the U.S. An increasing number of refrigerated train cars pushed bananas further inland, to places they had never gone before.
Beginning in the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company promoted the banana in a series of pamphlets and ads, taking it from a little-known novelty to a household staple. At the heart of their campaign was an endorsement of the fruit’s healthy properties. During the 1920s, the United Fruit Company hired doctors to extol the nutritional virtues of the fruit. In 1939, they offered free textbooks—decidedly pro-banana—to schoolchildren.
The Academy Library has a number of historical pamphlets produced by the United Fruit Company and its distribution arm, The Fruit Dispatch Company. Here, we offer a selection of images from that collection:
Cover of “The Food Value of the Banana,” 1928.
The cover of the fourth edition of “The Food Value of the Banana,” published in 1928, features a rosy-cheeked and radiant little boy, banana in hand.
In 1917 the United Fruit Company published “The Food Value of the Banana,” a collection of 15 opinion pieces touting the virtues of the banana as a nutritious snack. “Points about Bananas” concluded the volume.
The United Fruit Company’s test kitchens reported in 1924 that bananas with corn flakes and milk made the best breakfast for families. The company’s subsequent publications emphasized that bananas were powerfully healthy, especially for the very young.
“The Food Value of the Banana,” 1928, back cover.
The back cover of the same 1928 pamphlet explains the ideal time to consume a banana, and how it can be eaten in each phase of ripeness. Most bananas cycle from green to yellow to yellow with brown spots in seven days.
Cover of “Serve Bananas in ‘Latest Style,’” 1940.
The Fruit Dispatch Company published “Serve Bananas in ‘Latest Style’” in 1940 to introduce new banana recipes to American households. Recipes included “ham banana rolls with cheese sauce” and “banana fritters” as well as a “banana sweet potato casserole.” We’re charmed by the lady banana with the Elizabethan collar waving her napkin. She predates the United Fruit Company’s Chiquita Banana by four years.
From “Nutritive and Therapeutic Values of the Banana,” 1941.
1941 was a busy year for the UFC’s presses. Here, a chart from the second addendum to “Nutritive and Therapeutic Values of the Banana,” an annotated bibliography of recent research devoted to the fruit. The forward tells us that the banana pictured is a Gros Michel, or “Big Mike” banana, imported to the U.S. since the late 1890s. The “Big Mike” was larger, with a sturdier peel, and anecdotally more flavorful. By 1960 “Big Mikes” had been almost entirely eradicated by Panama disease. On American tables it was replaced by the Cavendish.
From “Bananas…How to Serve Them,” 1941.
This inset from “Bananas…How to Serve Them” (1941) illustrates the health benefits of bananas at every age. We learn that the Dionne quintuplets (b. 1934), the earliest quints to survive their infancy, ate bananas. Bananas are a “training table favorite” for athletes, and they appeal to the elderly as well because they are easy to chew and digest.
From “Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook,” 1960, page 2.
Inspired by Carmen Miranda’s character in Busby Berkeley’s The Gang’s All Here, United Fruit Company introduced Chiquita Banana in 1944 (Miranda herself was frequently called, “chiquita” in her films). Dik Brown, creator of Hagar the Horrible, drew the first Chiquita; advertising execs composed her famous song. Here, a 1960 iteration of Chiquita graces “Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook.”
“Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook,” 1960, pages 4-5.
“Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook,” 1960, pages 6-7
“Chiquita Banana’s Cookbook” offers an adorable banana bunny and a banana skillet breakfast, as well as new recipes for shakes. “Drink a banana and feel better for it,” says Chiquita, and we believe her because she’s wearing that amazing hat.
Bananas are highly nutritious, convenient superfoods packed with essential nutrients like potassium, vitamin B6, and dietary fiber. They offer practical health benefits, including enhanced digestive health, improved workout recovery, and better blood pressure regulation - and they’re a great way to celebrate, in moderation, in a cocktail like today’s Drink Of The Day, a Bananavardier Cocktail or Mocktail.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
