Soluri, John Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, & Environmental Change in Honduras & the United States. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, & Environmental Change in Honduras & the United States combines the fields of Environmental History and Economics to look at the transformation of the banana from a simple Honduran plant into a staple in American kitchens, and how the banana export trade changed cultural practices and biophysical processes that have shaped global economic institutions. In particular, Banana Cultures outlines the commodity chain analysis of the banana export trade, which involves processing and transportation technologies that enabled banana companies to hasten the …show more content…
Notwithstanding its tropical origins, the banana helped define every-day consumer culture in the United States. Fruit company executives dealt with how to market bananas and make them more popular than ever. In 1944 the United Fruit Company launched a radio campaign featuring a singing banana dubbed Miss Chiquita. After the launch of Miss Chiquita the Gros Michel banana was replaced with the Cavendish variety. The Cavendish and Miss Chiquita turned an agricultural commodity into a product that consumers would distinguish by brand name.
American women played perhaps the most important part in the marketing of bananas. Women were responsible for the grocery shopping in most American households and primarily bore the responsibility of making meals. As such, fruit companies aimed advertising at American women. Recipe books and The Chiquita Banana Song helped send the message that not all bananas were the same, but that the Chiquita banana was superior. The United Fruit Company also published pamphlets extolling the nutritional benefits of the
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Fruit companies created temporary employment opportunities with cyclical layoffs during production cycles. Alongside the expansion of the Cavendish, packaging plants were able to hire more women and children. On the other hand, plantation farming had a negative impact on the agricultural opportunities for the Honduran working class. It became all but impossible for ordinary laborers to find suitable land for farming. Artisan and worker organizations developed after fights for the only profitable lands remaining for
The sale of food products in the market of Tlatelolco with its various colors, shapes, smells, and sounds “unified Native American cuisines while preserving rich regional variations; [epitomized] the social relationships that depended on the feeding of gods and people; and [preserved] the cultural significance of taste for pre-Columbian cooking and eating” (9-10). Cuisine played an important part in the constructing of social hierarchies in Mesoamerica, and to this day continues to shape individuality not only in Mexico, but also for every country. Traditional forms of Mesoamerican cooking mainly belonged to women, and three simple utensils including a cazuela, a metate, and a comal, allowed them to frugally make delicious tortillas. But they “derived much of their self-worth from skill at the metate, the ability to grind maize so they could feed tortillas and tamales to their husbands and children,” (14-15). This single crop has permitted for these lower-class women to preserve and refine the pre-Columbian cuisine of tortillas and tamales. Mexicans have always been and still are a people of corn, in spite of numerous attempts to change this, partly in thanks to the female
The Michoacan state in Mexico has become the world’s largest producer of avocadoes. Although this vegetable is grown on farms throughout this state, it is also tied to an integral network of trade and export to countries across the globe. In this essay, I will argue that like any commodity chain study, the production of the organic Hass avocado has an intricate production process, which for my commodity chain study begins in Uruapan, Mexico a town in the state of Michoacan. This analysis has indicated the crucial underlying links to trade, labour, and demand that the export of this vegetable has created throughout North America and the rest of the world. I hope to establish these links in an attempt to ‘defetishize’ this commodity and bring about the broader and conflicting issues that have resulted between Mexico and nearby countries such as the United States and Canada. I will begin this research by briefly reviewing the actual process and networks that the organic Hass avocado forms from the farms in Uruapan and the path it takes to the grocery stores in Vancouver, Canada. Then look to the implications of NAFTA and other related issues that have affected the trading process of avocadoes and has created severe divisions between the USA and Mexico. I will establish the importance of the organic produce industry and its exports to further developed countries with increasing demand for these organic products. And conclude that the future of the organic produce industry may be struck with ongoing divisions, as it becomes more globalized, between larger organic agricultural firms and smaller organic farmers who rely heavil...
In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability. I agree with Kingsolver that knowing the origin of food is an important and healthy benefit of developing a true food culture, but it is impractical to maintain that everyone is able to buy more expensive food. Kingsolver presents a compelling argument for developing a food culture, however this lifestyle change may not be practical or even possible for a poverty-level citizen. The following essay will summarize and respond to Kingsolver’s argument to demonstrate how “Called Home” is a model for novice social scientists.
The rapid spread of globalization has increased economic and social benefits for the United States in the diversification of products for trade, yet Pinchbeck points out its dangers. (Claim). Pinchbeck illustrates the negative impact of globalization with multiple references that include the Amazonian rainforest’s “systematic destruction” and the disappearance of “vast treasures of botanical knowledge and linguistic and spiritual traditions” (148, 163). (Evidence) Abundant research readily discusses the devastating impacts of globalization. (Warrant). Deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest has serious implications beyond the local disruption of the natural food chain network as it contributes to soil erosion, species extinction, air pollution, and climate change (Wright, LaRocca & DeJongh; Hahn et al.; Medvigy et al.). Globalization accelerates the loss of languages al...
Tuncer, B. and P. Schroeder. 2007. Chapter 8 Sambazon - marketing the acai berry: sustaintable agro-forestry in the Brazilian Amazon. Paper read at SCP casis in the field of Food, Mobilitiy and Housing, at Paris, France.
This source was one of the most useful for the research of the collateral. It is a PDF file of the Columbian Exchange and all the background information of the trade, as well as an extensive list of foods are provided. Cacao beans, while not a staple crop, was very influential in the trade network. This journal was useful in providing details on the importance of cacao, and its significance over time.
Pre-industrial labor mostly consisted of farming and agriculture involving the entire family. In 1823, 97 percent of all Americans still lived in farms therefore the rural population and workforce was much larger than the urban population and workforce. The production and growing of food was used by the...
Back in the day, the United Fruit Company was a very big deal, especially in New Orleans. A man named Zemurray, in particular, greatly impacted New Orleans. Rich Cohen became obsessed with Zemurray and wrote a book, The Fish That Ate The Whale:The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, giving a complete explanation on all the good, and also the very worst Zemurray did. Sam Zemurray and his family made very large contributions to Tulane, started many foundations in his name, and also had a garden named after him. People have forgotten about him and will never learn who Zemurray actually is. Zemurray left a great legacy in New Orleans and in many parts of Louisiana, unfortunately he has been forgotten.
Millies, Stephen. "How United Fruit Robbed and Killed the People of Central America." Workers World. 3 Oct. 1996. Web. .
The two cultures that I identify myself with Haitian culture and American culture. The American culture is more dominant and I identify myself most with this culture. Although I was born in Haiti and Haitian culture was once my dominant culture, it is now my co-culture. Nonetheless, a combination of these two cultures would be Haitian-American culture.
Having discussed the Mexican Revolution in brief, it is appropriate to turn to the first actor in the revolutionary drama: the Mexican worker. The process of rapid economic development under Porfirio Diaz beginning in the 1890s had created the country’s first significant industrial working class. Alicia Hernandez Chavez notes that railroad workers, for example, numbered in the tens of thousands by 1910, whereas they had not existed before the creation and expansion of the industry (MBH 173). The arrival of the streetcar, now found in a number of major Mexican cities, created another skilled working-class occupation that did not exist before. In the two decades before the outbreak of the revolution, a modern textile sector also emerged. It reached six hundred and six thousand workers, many concentrated in large factories producing cloth for domestic consumption (MBH 173). Mining, a boom-and-bust industry that dated from the colonial period, recovered and expanded considerably thanks to the railroads. In 1910, miners numbered almost a hundred thousand in Mexico (MBH 173). They lived in mining camps and towns found largely in the Mexican north. More generally, various mass consumer goods were increasingly shifting to small-scale factory production, including items like soap, candles, beer, furniture, soft drinks, cigarettes, meat, and baked goods.
While there are many examples from which to drawn, Enloe’s discussion of the banana and agricultural production in Latin America and beyond, highlights the particular way in which the production of bananas has been gendered as male, while the consumption (particularly that of US-American) is primarily construed as female. For one there is the way in which bananas are marketed as inherently for responsible female mothers in places like the United States, who feel the need to provide certain foods deemed nutritional Enloe 1990, PG). As the consumer is female, so too is the gendered construction of the actual object of the banana: the banana becomes marketed and emblemized through American understanding of the highly sexualized and exotic Latina (Enloe 128-130). On the flip side, Enloe argues that larger historical and political work has construed the production and packaging of bananas as inherently male-lead (Enloe 128 ). In Latin America, Central America, the Carribean and the Phillipeans where bananas are largely produced, not only were men doing most of the business negations but male workers are seen as the fittest for the grueling physical job (Enloe 128). In reality, however, we come to see the invisible work of women, so that women are the backbone of many agricultural labor forces. Increasingly they too are doing actual physical work of weeding and preparing bananas (Enloe 136-139), but they also do a plethora of other “work” that made banana planation’s so functional and profitable, often working in brothers and as substitute wives and housekeepers (Enloe 140-142). It should be noted that in the sex work, they are seen as tangential and not directly related to the work of men in the field. In addition, when
Great civilizations rise and fall throughout the course of history. From the Romans and Greeks to the Aztecs and Maya, every society has its own great achievements and miserable failures. The discovery of the Americas in the late fifteenth century leads to the creation of many great empires and the demise of others. In particular, the Spanish expand their empire into the Americas and conquer any people that stand in their way. The Inca are one of these people. To the Spanish, the Inca are mere barbarians lacking a written language, iron forging abilities, and other European customs and practices. Despite the absence of qualities the Europeans consider to be necessary for an advanced society, the Inca are able to achieve immense accomplishments within their empire. One of the greatest accomplishments can be seen in the ancient city of Machu Picchu. The drainage engineering and hydraulic engineering techniques at this site prove that the Inca are no less primitive in their abilities than the Spanish during the time of the American conquest.
Foods from Africa, which have impacted North American cuisine are numerous, and common in the everyday eating habits of Americans. In the 21st century, Americans take for granted the history of the food they eat, and the origins of the foods that are eaten today. In the early part of the history of the United States, people of European descent brought recipes from home and adapted their recipes to the ingredients which were available. The slave trade was directly responsible for what many Americans think of as American food, and those foods are traceable to Africa. Because slaves incorporated their own foods into the everyday lives of their masters, some of the unique foods from Africa and their history are not well known today. American
This article sets a good example for researchers of more developed countries who study such indigenous cultures. Rather than trying to see which modern technology from the "outside world" will best help these cultures, Fujisaka attempts to learn from these cultures' traditional methods to help improve the farming industry. Fujisaka's study of rice farming in the Philippines is much like Lansing's study in Bali, in that both cultures rely heavily on rice farming and both cultures suffered much the same from the effects of the Green Revolution. Thus, finding what improvements need to be made and how, is an important task that could help many people.