Just look at the gross banana recipes in this 1940s Chiquita Banana promotional cookbook

Just look at them.

Chiquita Banana Cookbook From '40s Is Bizarre (PHOTOS) (Thanks, Rebecca!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: bananas • Food • just look at it • not food • Old school

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Preston Sturges

I don’t think that green spunk would ever look right on a banana.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Oh, I don’t know about that.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    Wikipedia has an upskirt photo of the Giant
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Giant
    
    “The Valley of the Jolly Green Giant” refers to the Minnesota River valley around Le Sueur. Today, just before dropping down into the valley heading south on U.S. Route 169 an enormous wooden sign of the Jolly Green Giant, along with Sprout, is visible with the caption “Welcome to the valley”. Since the sign pokes up through trees, it has become a source of minor controversy as it frequently frightens motorists. Sixty miles further south on Route 169, in the City of Blue Earth, Minnesota, a statue of the Jolly Green Giant is also open to public view. In 1978, the town of Blue Earth, Minnesota paid $43,000 to erect a 55-foot (17 m) fiberglass statue of the Jolly Green Giant to commemorate the linking of the east and west sections of Interstate 90. It was permanently erected on July 6, 1979, at 43°39′02″N 94°5′46″W. The statue attracts over 10,000 visitors a year.
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

I dunno, I think they’d look a lot better if they weren’t suffering from ye olde colour syndrome.
- http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
  
  Yeah, I just had a similar thought – was all food gross back then or did they just not know how to light/shoot it?
  - sam1148
    
    Old color prints and photos color shift with age—especially ones from the 50′s and 60′s. When they were originally shot they were probably spot on in color.
- McGreens
  
  They might look better but they certainly wouldn’t taste better.
http://marrickvillian.blogspot.com/ Al Corrupt

Mint jelly and banana?
Good lord, NO!
I need a unicorn and banana smoothie chaser after seeing that..
Pro tip – Thinly slice banana lengthwise, shallow fry in macadamia nut oil till caramelised. Most awesome.
- Preston Sturges
  
  Plug in American blending machine won from some Yank last summer, some poker game, table stakes, B.O.Q. somewhere in the north, never remember now….Chop several bananas into pieces. Make coffee in urn. Get can of milk from cooler. Puree ‘nanas in milk. Lovely. I would coat all the booze-corroded stomachs of England. . . . Bit of marge, still smells all right, melt in the skillet. Peel more bananas, slice lengthwise. Marge sizzling, in go long slices. Light oven whoomp blow us all up someday oh, ha, ha, yes. Peeled whole bananas to go on broiler grill soon as it heats. Find marshmallows. . . ….
  With a clattering of chairs, upended shell cases, benches, and ottomans, Pirate’s mob gather at the shores of the great refectory table, a southern island well across a tropic or two from chill Corydon Throsp’s mediaeval fantasies, crowded now over the swirling dark grain of its walnut uplands with banana omelets, banana sandwiches, banana casseroles, mashed bananas molded into the shape of a British lion rampant, blended with eggs into batter for French toast, squeezed out a pastry nozzle across the quivering creamy reaches of a banana blancmange to spell out the words C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre (attributed to a French observer during the Charge of the Light Brigade) which Pirate has appropriated as his motto . . . tall cruets of pale banana syrup to pour oozing over banana waffles, a giant glazed crock where diced bananas have been fermenting since the summer with wild honey and muscat raisins, up out of which, this winter morning, one now dips foam mugsfull of banana mead . . . banana croissants and banana kreplach, and banana oatmeal and banana jam and banana bread, and bananas flamed in ancient brandy Pirate brought back last year from a cellar in the Pyrenees also containing a clandestine radio transmitter. . .
  -Gravity’s Rainbow
Donald Petersen

I’d say we’re past the point where antibiotics would help. Banana slicer, stat!
- Preston Sturges
  
  “Don’t worry, in two week’s it’ll fall off by itself!”
Shibi_SF

With curry sauce? Urk urk. do. not. want.

I’m glad that I wasn’t alive during the 40′s. Bananas with shrimp would have killed me on the spot.

(I don’t even like it when my bananas start to get brown spots!)
- Kaleberg
  
  Bananas are great in Thai curry. They’re one of the classic add on ingredients along with bacon, peanuts, scallions, shredded coconut and so on. In the US we have a thing against mixing sweets and savories, but it’s pretty common in a lot of cuisines. (Try General Tso’s chicken.) To be honest, it’s actually pretty common in a lot of US prepared savories which are loaded with corn syrup and salt.
Akezys

Seems like they tried to adapt bananas into plantains for culinary use… failing miserably mind you.
http://twitter.com/rohnjyan John Ryan

Bananas back then were much less sweet. Closer to a mushy sweet potato or a plantain. Still, mint jelly? No. Never, ever.
http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait

not so far fetched after having bananas in most types of meals in brazil.
Digilante

Behold, the finest banana recipe your taste buds will ever encuonter. Directly from the veld of the old Transvaal:

- 1 or 2 bananas per person
- leave in a warm place until they are really ripe and starting to get black spots
- use a paring knife to make one cut through the skin along the shortest line from top to bottom (the “inside”)
- place on the outdoor grill/bbq/barbie/braai
- grill until skin is completely black and liquid comes out of the cut
- put on plate and use a teaspoon to mash the insides up
- pour in a shot or three of porto wine (or whiskey and then flambe)
http://twitter.com/BonzoDog1 BonzoDog1

Once we sent the Marines in to get them, we had to do something with them.
pjcamp

Why am I thinking about zombie porn?
- http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
  
  Syphilis-related dementia, I expect. Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.
Crubellier

This would appear to be an excellent example of a highly specific microgenre of sponsored cookbooks, in which most of the recipes boil down to ‘make an otherwise sane and sensible dish then put our product on/in/near it’.
brucearthurs

I humbly submit that none of these recipes match the evil that is Liver Sausage Bologna Loaf.
seattlerebecca

Woo hoo! Boing Boing Doctorow Banana Post Achievement UNLOCKED!

Those pictures are soooo gross, but they do pass the Mull of Kintyre test.

http://kottke.org/13/01/the-mull-of-kintyre-test
http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop

Banana curry with shrimp next to it doesn’t sound bad at all, to me. Neither do the battered and deep-fried banana chunks in the article’s slideshow. Or the banana with red currant jelly next to (what I presume is) turkey. (Wouldn’t be terribly far off from turkey with cranberry sauce, in my mind.)

The only thing that gives me pause is the banana with mint jelly. But I’d be willing to try it.

I think these recipes suffer more from unattractive pictures than really bad ideas.