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.
It’s myth. Don’t trust AI.
“A food history myth is that artificial banana flavor was specifically developed from the Gros Michel, but isoamyl acetate is a simple compound and was not based on any specific cultivar.”
This myth predates AI by a lot
Which is why “AI” will parrot it.
Ok, how us that relevant? People parrot it, just like done here, even more.
I asked, it stated the lie. I told it to research (just said research it) and it gave me the right answer complete with the chemical flavoring being the issue and link to the proof. It’s like google. You don’t trust the first thing you’re told.
This myth existed way before AI
I also heard that the reason Big Mike was the dominant banana of choice for so long and the Cavendish was not is because the fruit companies firmly believed that the Cavendish was too disgusting in comparison and no one would ever buy it.
#dominantbanana
We should form a banana government!
I read your entire comment, and didn’t see the edit at the bottom until later. I feel like hundreds of people are doing the same thing and you’re helping to perpetuate the myth.
Whenever I post a comment and I’m wrong, I strike it out. I suggest you do the same.
~~this syntax produces this:~~this syntax produces this:(Note: You have to strike out each paragraph individually.)
Thank you for your service! You saved me from having to do it haha.
From having to spread misinformation…?
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
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.
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!
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 and I’m only one of those things…
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?
That disease did the world a favor.
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.
Like raspberry.
Blue raspberry is incredibly accurate though…
…It’s a bit ironic the actual fruit is now extinct…
None of that is true.
derived from otters’ anal glands or some such?
Most candy flavors don’t taste much like their fruit counterpart. IDK why banana is single out most often.
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.
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.
I don’t know but Smurfs candy seems accurate for me
Watermelon Jolly Rancher Gang represent
More flavor than actual watermelons
Awwww yeahhh
When I ate orange(fruit) after many months of eating orage flavoured stuff, I tasted the orange flavour mixed along with a bunch of flavours in the fruit. It was very faint though.
Because the artificial banana taste is based on a kind of banana that doesn’t exist anymore, so its very inaccurate compared to the taste of actual bananas that people knowedit: apparently that’s not true, TIL
Did you somehow not see the many comments here proving that’s not true? It’s been widely reported as being false for years.
I have not
That’s a myth.
Does cinnamon really taste like this?
It tastes like that because it was flavored to taste like the gros michel banana.
It doesn’t taste exactly like that either, but that’s why it doesn’t taste like the Cavendish banana that you’re used to.
Got the process backwards. The early flavoring was designed by finding something with a strong scent or flavor and then labeling it as whatever they thought it was closest to or would sell best.
Less “finally, this tastes like banana” and more “I bet no one will complain if I call this banana”.
Wasn’t Hank Green who made a video about that?
Probably dozens of people have. Can’t remember the channel name (it was the name of their candy shop but fuck me if I remember the shop’s name) but I saw a video from a candy maker about that about 10 years ago.
Boy, I haven’t thought of Lofty Pursuits in a long time
I hate actual bananas, least fave fruit. LOVE fake banana flavor. They’re clearly nothing alike.
Same goes for artificial apple flavor.
I mean … Do any of the laffy taffy flavors taste like the real fruits?
deleted by creator
Ironically the best laffy taffy flavor.
Always assumed is was some kind of petroleum derivative
I look at banana flavour the way I look at blue raspberry
rather the aim, chap
