“Each night now he spent at Miss Cora’s shop was a celebration. Each night now someone brought him a hand of ripe Gros Michel banana, a head of St. Vincent or Renta yam, a food of tobacco for Miss Sylvie, a string of perch, a cake of handmade soap” (135)
When Lowe visits Miss Cora’s shop for the first time, he is faced with unease, uncertainty, doubt, and so am I as I read this scene. Lowe creeps from Miss Sylvie’s house on a sleepless and dreamless night, and ventures to the piazza. He sees a lively bustle coming from Miss Cora’s lit up shop, and decides to go inside. He recognizes people’s laughter, their jokes, told time and time again from when his shop was still standing. He sees people living life unaffected, since “to them, nothing had happened. Their lives had not come to a complete standstill” (132). Whereas, “for him, though, it had stopped. Now he had nothing. They had burned it down. Left him with nothing” while their lives continue to go on (132). This enrages Lowe, and he decides to leave, but is noticed before he gets the chance. A crowd of men recognize Lowe, call him over, shout, and embrace him. They celebrate Lowe’s presence in the shop, as if nothing had happened, as if they had not burned down his shop, owed him money, or beat their wives prior to arriving to the shop. Lowe returns to Miss Cora’s shop for a while, every night being a celebration where they all spoke of the past, when Lowe’s shop was still standing–the good old days. However, Lowe eventually breaks his silence and asks why they burned his shop down yet present him with nightly gifts.
One of these gifts is a bunch of Gros Michel bananas. I had never heard of Gros Michel bananas before, and was intrigued to see what they looked like since “gros” means “fat” in French. The Gros Michel banana is a cultivar of banana that was the main cultivar before 1950, before they were wiped out by Panama disease. The Cavendish banana replaced the Gros Michel, and is the type of banana we know of today. Also called “Big Mikes,” these bananas are smaller and sweeter than the Cavendish cultivar, and extremely hard to get a hold of in the US. Gros Michel bananas were brought to the West in the early 19th century, when a French naturalist brought some with him to Martinique. The fruit’s growth and popularity grew there, and later in 1835, a French botanist brought some over to Jamaica. Forty years later, the Gros Michel spread across the globe and remained the main cultivar of banana for the next few decades. When Panama disease wiped out Gros Michel production in Central America, where most production took place, the Cavendish banana was introduced from China. Big Mikes apparently taste “candy” sweet and are sought by banana fanatics across the nation. They can be found online through Miami Fruit Company for $67/small box (!).
Frost, Natasha. “A Quest for the Gros Michel, the Great Banana of Yesteryear.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 28 Feb. 2018, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gros-michel-bananas.
Koeppel, Dan. “Banana : the Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.” Internet Archive, New York : Hudson Street Press, 2008, archive.org/details/bananafateoffrui00koep.