Banana

<b>In the vein of Mark Kurlansky's bestselling <i>Salt </i>and <i>Cod</i> a gripping chronicle of the myth mystery and uncertain fate of the world's most popular fruit</b> <p/> In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana's history cultural significance and endangered future award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining <i>Banana</i> takes us from jungle to supermarket from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Eden--examining scholars' belief that Eve's apple was actually a banana-- and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America where aptly named banana republics rose and fell over the crop while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the banana's path to the present ultimately--and most alarmingly--taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight with no cure in sight--and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit.