I was once driving though one of the island (La Palma IIRC) and stopped to ask some older guy for directions. They guys says “yes, you’re going in the right directions. do you want some bananas?”. We thought he wants so sell us some so since he was nice to us we were like “sure, well take some”. The guy goes to his garage and comes out with huge bunch of bananas. We’re like 'eee… how much is that?" and he goes “no, just take them, I have too many”.
The Spanish banana industry must be fairly recent, as in the 1960s, the largest producer of banana in Europe was said to be Iceland, largely from a few experimental greenhouses.
It is not. Bananas have been introduced to southern Spain by the Arab Conquest. The industry on the Canary Islands is obviously newer, but was run as large scale plantations since the beginning of the last century. However the Canary Islands are probably African rather then Europe.
Holy crap bananas grow so much further north than I expected, even without the gulf stream. Or wait never mind, the gulf stream apparently hugs North America until Virginia before heading to Europe. Wild stuff
🤓 Ackshually one can get EU-grown bananas from the French DOM-TOM.
or the Spanish Canary islands. To my own surprise EU grown bananas make up over 10% of EU banana consumption:
I was once driving though one of the island (La Palma IIRC) and stopped to ask some older guy for directions. They guys says “yes, you’re going in the right directions. do you want some bananas?”. We thought he wants so sell us some so since he was nice to us we were like “sure, well take some”. The guy goes to his garage and comes out with huge bunch of bananas. We’re like 'eee… how much is that?" and he goes “no, just take them, I have too many”.
The Spanish banana industry must be fairly recent, as in the 1960s, the largest producer of banana in Europe was said to be Iceland, largely from a few experimental greenhouses.
It is not. Bananas have been introduced to southern Spain by the Arab Conquest. The industry on the Canary Islands is obviously newer, but was run as large scale plantations since the beginning of the last century. However the Canary Islands are probably African rather then Europe.
There is also banana production on the Azores (Portugal), including on the islands that are on the European tectonic plate.
Holy crap bananas grow so much further north than I expected, even without the gulf stream. Or wait never mind, the gulf stream apparently hugs North America until Virginia before heading to Europe. Wild stuff