• TropicalDingdong
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    21 hours ago

    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

    • Shadow@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      You didn’t answer the question that we all have - do the candies actually taste like the Gros Michel?

    • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social
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      20 hours ago

      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 😅

      • TropicalDingdong
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        19 hours ago

        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.

        • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social
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          4 hours ago

          It was more of a joke, sadly. But I appreciate your answer 💖

          I have a friend with a freeze dryer, but he uses it to dry his weed 😂

      • felixwhynot
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        18 hours ago

        Surely someone on the south of the continent can grow some rare bananas?

    • felixwhynot
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      18 hours ago

      This sounds dope and as an enjoyer of bananas I am intrigued

      • TropicalDingdong
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        19 hours ago

        Yeah maybe the description wasn’t the best?

        Like, my apple bananas. They taste “sharper”, and have a more authentic banana flavor, and are less cloying. And the texture is more firm, even when ripe/ overripe. Even when ripe they have structure, they aren’t mush.

        Cavendish is disgusting to me. Like I can’t even eat one. Its literally gross. But I can eat like 3-5 apple bananas in one sitting.

          • TropicalDingdong
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            19 hours ago

            Gros michel is a cultivar, Cavendish is a cultivar, Tahitian blues a cultivar, and “apple banana” is cultivar, but also an often used name for “unnamed cultivar”.

            The difference is as big as the difference between a Fuji apple and a granny smith. They’re practically different fruit.