While staying at a Vacation Rental By Owner in Maui on our 10 month delayed 10-year anniversary trip, we sampled some bananas grown locally. Unlike the larger ones we’re used to from our grocery store, these little ones have a brighter, sweeter flavor. It got me thinking about bananas.

According to the Internet, the majority of commercially grown bananas are the Cavendish variety. The name sounds decidedly British upperclass, and not to disappoint, takes it’s name from an English Duke. That variety replaced another that was wiped out by a blight a couple of centuries ago.

Bananas have rough history of being a plantation grown crop. The term “banana republic” comes from an O. Henry story Cabbages and Kings based on the country of Honduras where big business and corrupt government officials oppressed a population of farm laborers into production and exportation of bananas as a cash crop at the expense of the rights and wellbeing of the populace.

Banana Republic is also a clothing line. They started by selling military surplus as safari clothing and were purchased in the 1980s by the company that makes Old Navy and Gap. Their clothes are made mostly overseas in countries with low minimum wages.