WEIRD FRUITS

A conversation with a banana obsessive

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UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. BANANAS OF BORNEO: A couple of months ago, we made this tee for an event that we hosted with Anthony Basil Rodriguez. We still have a few left. GO HERE to score one while you can!

   

   WEIRD FRUITS: A Conversation w/ Anthony Basil Rodriguez

A close-up of the fruit of Musa monticola, a wild dwarf species endemic to Borneo. Photo credit Anthony Basil Rodriguez.

Bananas are among the world's most popular fruit. Yet despite their ubiquity, they are sorely misunderstood misfits. Indeed, the fruit known as an international phallic symbol is, in fact, nothing more than an asexual, sterile clone, at least in terms of the banana that you and I are familiar with. But when you peel the ol’ banana, you discover a dizzying variety of species—some the size of Bocce balls that bear no resemblance to the curved oblongs of Warholian fame, others that taste richly of custard-filled pastries, and others still whose colossal β-Carotene levels will turn your pee antifreeze-blue. So, we decided to get into it with our friend, banana nut Anthony Basil Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is a Renaissance man of the banana world: a storyteller, photographer, and filmmaker multi-hyphenate documenting the plants and varied ecologies and cultures of the Musa genus in habitats around the world, from the damp rainforests of Borneo to the snow-covered foothills of the Himalayas. We caught up with Anthony last week, fresh from a trip to Grenada, to talk all things banana. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Rodriguez with young members of the Himba tribe in northern Namibia. Photo credit Anthony Basil Rodriguez.

Specimen Monthly: What was the banana species that first got you hooked?

Anthony: At first, it was a fe'i type from Papua New Guinea. It was just so massive and round, like a ball. I couldn’t believe this was a banana, and from there, I was like, “What the fuck?”

SM: What’s it taste like?

A: It’s like a custard, almost like a cream-filled donut, with a ripe plantain flavor.

SM: It’s beautiful.

Rodriguez holding the fruit of a rare fe'i species. Photo credit Anthony Basil Rodriguez.