The Great Banana Conspiracy was triggered by a technological advance.\u00a0 Around 1880 the commercial production of residential kitchen iceboxes began, bringing the promise of preserving perishable foods.\u00a0 The governing board of the world banana cartel immediately recognized the threat to their bottom line.\u00a0 The cartel decided upon a disinformation campaign based on a kernel of truth: in a sealed container the natural plant hormones released by bananas accelerate ripening.\u00a0 This effect was already used commercially to ripen bananas for market.<\/p>\n
The word went out: \u201cDo not put bananas in the refrigerator.\u00a0 They will turn brown and go bad.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It was passed to the grapevine, fed into the rumor mill, gossiped over back yard fences, and inserted into the interminable Senate filibusters of the time.\u00a0 It was picked up by our great-grandmothers, passed to our grandmothers, who taught it to our mothers, and now we indoctrinate our own children and grandchildren.\u00a0 It has resulted in 130 years of soft, sticky, and blah bananas resting in cute little mesh slings or dangling from crescent-shaped hangers on kitchen counters.<\/p>\n
In point of fact, when fresh bananas are put into the refrigerator, they do develop a superficial light brown dusting on the surface of their skins after a few days.\u00a0 Yet when you take one out, you find that the peel underneath is still crisp and the fruit inside is fresh, firm, and sweet.\u00a0 (Keep green bananas at room temperature until the bodies just turn yellow and then put them in the refrigerator.)<\/p>\n
We were also told to not put bread in the refrigerator, effectively the same misdirection.\u00a0 As a practical matter, the early iceboxes were small, and what little space they had was needed for eggs, meat, and milk.\u00a0 Bread was baked at home and generally eaten on the same day.\u00a0 So the habit of no refrigeration became the rule.\u00a0 Modern refrigerators have eliminated the space problem and store-bought bread has replaced daily baking \u2013 however, the rule has remained while modern smaller families are taking longer to finish a loaf.<\/p>\n
The fact is that bread keeps just fine for several days in its plastic wrap in the refrigerator.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t get moldy, it doesn\u2019t get soggy, it doesn\u2019t dry out, and it doesn\u2019t become stale.\u00a0 It toasts the same way, makes perfectly good sandwiches, and stays generally indistinguishable from non-refrigerated bread.\u00a0 If you need a room temperature slice or two, a mere 8 or 10 seconds in the microwave takes care of that.\u00a0 And since in the refrigerator the bread does not get moldy, you won\u2019t find yourself trying to remember how many days ago you bought it.\u00a0 There may be an exotic crusty French boule that\u2019s edible only while still warm from the oven, but if your bread came from the grocery store, throw it in the fridge.<\/p>\n
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The Great Banana Conspiracy was triggered by a technological advance.\u00a0 Around 1880 the commercial production of residential kitchen iceboxes began, bringing the promise of preserving perishable foods.\u00a0 The governing board of the world banana cartel immediately recognized the threat to their bottom line.\u00a0 The cartel decided upon a disinformation campaign based on a kernel of … Continue reading “The Great Banana Conspiracy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,20,21],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-banana","tag-bread","tag-refrigerator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irrelevant-tech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}