Bananas

the long version

"In this wide-ranging history of the most popular and least expensive fruit in the United States, Virginia Scott Jenkins shows how developments in international trade and transportation enabled banana shipments from the Caribbean to reach even the most remote North American towns. She describes how public health campaigns and marketing innovations enticed Americans to eat more and more of the fruit that came in its own "germ-free" packaging. She uses bananas to illustrate changes in diet and etiquette, shows how bananas symbolized the supposed danger or romance of the tropics, and visits the International Banana Festival in Fulton, Kentucky, which in its heyday touted banana consumption as a weapon against communism - and featured a one-ton banana pudding."--Jacket.