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Bananas are a mono-crop. There was a disease in the latter half of the 20th century that threatened all bananas on the planet. A particular strain survived called the Cavendish. It is what you NOW think of as a banana. The candy tastes like the way bananas used to taste.
counterpoint: https://youtu.be/I9ZtvpBoXzI
TL;DW banana candy does not taste like gros michel either
My friend and I ordered dried Gros Michel from the same vendor Hank ordered after watching his video. They do indeed smell like banana candy. It tasted great!
He did find that the artificial banana flavor tastes the way gros michel bananas smell when they're very ripe, though. So I don't think it's wrong to say the flavor is based on the gros michel rather than the cavendish, it's just that flavor is a really complex equation and artificial flavors tend to fail to capture the totality of the experience.
Yeah it's only with grapes that they really captured the best part
I have never had fake grape flavoring that didn't taste like some kind of soviet-era urinal cleaner, is that just a me thing? Do people really like grape flavouring, and my dislike stems from a horrible repressed childhood trauma or something?
I hate grape flavoring as well, and always have. Actual grapes? Delicious. Raisins? Also great. But candy pretending to be grape flavored just feels like a chemical approximation of the worst flavors in a grape.
Cherry is also shit. I love cherries, my ideal relationship is where I get the cherries from the milkshakes and give the pickles from whatever. But cherry flavored candy or soda or whatever, unless it’s a nice place and they’re just pouring maraschino juice in your drink, tastes like being 6 and being forced to drink cough syrup.
So I may only love it because it was my mom's favorite flavor so I have good memories of being a kid and picking grape stuff to share with her. But yeah I love the flavor. It's definitely one of the more divisive of the popular artificial flavors though.
I can't comment on it tasting like a soviet urinal, I'm not quite kinky enough to know how that tastes.
When I was a kid, I didn't like cherry flavour for similar reasons, but for some reason, as an adult my tastes changed and it's alright.
So I think grape flavour is generally just you, sorry to say. I certainly like it alright. :)
Can confirm. I went on a banana adventure during the pandemic where I ate nearly 10kg of all sorts of different bananas, including the "Big Mike". I learned the Cavendish is a shit banana and we've been cheated out of superior nanners for decades.
There are still places you can get the good bananas but they are not very common anymore
Yeah and unless the guy who made the above video got ripped off, they're roughly $100 a dozen 😬
Just go to South America, there's a million kinds of banana and they're all dirt cheap.
Fun fact: trips from Denmark to any part of South America tend to cost in excess of $100 too.
Also, I'd probably have to do a layover in the US, which isn't exactly safe for anyone who isn't a rich white right wing Christian lately.
I'm not curious enough about alternative bananas to risk being thrown in a concentration camp in order to sample them..
You're probably better off connecting in Iberia, fwiw.
SE Asia only solves part of your problem but that’s better than solving none of it, right?
It’s also where bananas actually originated…that counts for something, right?
Ooooh I get to be the know it all asshole who says this and the runts flavor banana don't taste like banana to us because we're used to the modern dominant banana cultivar, the Cavandish, while the inventor of Runts and Laffy Taffy were familiar with the then dominant banana cultivar, the Gros Michele!
The Gros Michele was swapped out as it was plagued by blight and the Cavandish was resistant to this kind of blight. Nowadays, the Cavandish is also starting to show signs of mass blight issues and some growers are considering switching back to the Gros Michele to combat that!
Edit: Whoohoo! I'm wrong and I learned new things!
Hank green did a video about that where he tasted a gros michele and if I'm remembering correctly he said it didn't really taste like the candy
I'm the other asshole, who's seen someone on YouTube trying a Gros Michele banana and saying it doesn't taste like the candy flavour. Maybe this just was as close as they could get to the flavour back in the day. And then, once established, this became "banana" forever and ever.
I go to the banana festival every year. I've had all of these varieties and many many more. I have three different varieties growing (including dwarf Cavendish). You can try gros michel at the fest, along with many more flavors.
I'll say first hand that gros michel is a much more flavorful banana than Cavendish. Its more fragrant and perfumed, and very sweet. But also, just about any other banana is better tasting that Cavendish. My Tahitian blues are delicious. And the star of our yard is our unnamed variety of apple banana.
The Tahitian blues are more mild and sweet. But with better texture than a Cavendish. But the apples. They're the dream banana. A but more tart and firm, even when iver ripe. And if you can let them get fully ripe on the tree, just amazing flavors.
The issue with the apple though is that the trees are massive and super aggressive. If I had more space I would just grow those, but it ends up being a few hours a month in management just to keep the apple bananas from taking over. There's a farm I'm helping to start and this is the variety we growing there.
Banana fest is only 15 for a wrist band and all you can eat bananas
$15 + "get to hawaii". The last half is the tricky part, but otherwise im onboard.
This one bananas.
You didn't answer the question that we all have - do the candies actually taste like the Gros Michel?
This sounds dope and as an enjoyer of bananas I am intrigued
So how much to send a mixed crate to Germany? Because all I ever had was "the most unripe shit, ripened in special container"-Cavendish. And I'm mad about it 😅
I'm sure there are some specialty shipping companies, but at the price of shipping, could probably fly to Hawaii (or Samoa, or Fiji, or Costa Rica, or Mexico, or Ecuador, or Brazil, etc). Any fruit market in a tropical country is going to have 10+ varieties of banana.
I have a neighbor who bought a commercial freeze drying machine, and I would say that freeze drying is the best way to keep the flavor as "true" to the flavor you get when ripe. When we get plenty bunches coming in we get maybe 20-30kg a week. We freeze them because things really slow down in the winter (maybe 20-30 kg every 6 week?). If can, I'll get some freeze dried and could ship much more affordably.
Most candy flavors don't taste much like their fruit counterpart. IDK why banana is single out most often.
You ever seen a blue raspberry?
Wtf is that flavor?
I like Gatorade's "Blue." Not "Blue Raspberry," just "Blue." Now we know what a color tastes like, I guess.
I once had "red soda". It tasted red.
They usually single out one or two compounds out of dozens which make up the flavor profile, pair it with citric acid and sugar in whatever ratio, and call it good. If they actually synthesized a complex, realistic fruit taste, your laffy taffy would cost about as much as a fine bottle of perfume, which is where they DO pull many compounds together to create an immersive profile.
It might cost as much to make as perfume, but for that kind of "luxury" shit the retail price and the cost of producing the product are entirely separate. Perfume is cheap to make too, it's the brand that's expensive.
I don't know but Smurfs candy seems accurate for me
Watermelon Jolly Rancher Gang represent
Ironically the best laffy taffy flavor.
Banana Candy is one of those legacy flavors from a time in the past when our ability to create artificial flavors was extremely limited.
Isoamyl acetate, the chemical which is traditionally used for artificial banana flavor, was first synthesized in the UK where it was marketed as Jargonelle pear flavor. Companies importing it to the US believed that the American public wouldn't be interested in pear candy, so they decided to call it banana flavor instead.
Also, as an aside, Lecroy now sells "sunshine" flavored sparkling water which I'm 90% sure is flavored with isoamyl acetate. I think they just decided to lean into the fact that it tastes distinctly fruity, but not like any one fruit in particular.
I hate actual bananas, least fave fruit. LOVE fake banana flavor. They're clearly nothing alike.