Valentine’s Day is coming with many flavors of candy offered. Have you ever eaten a piece of banana-flavored candy and thought, “Have the people that made this ever eaten a banana? This tastes nothing like any banana I’ve ever eaten.” History suggests it seems possible that the flavor disconnect between artificial banana and actual banana is actually a small taste of the past rather than incompetence of food manufacturers.

While most grocery stores in the United States sell only one type of banana, there are over 1,000 varieties that differ in size, color, texture and taste. The banana that most of us recognize is the Cavendish, but the Cavendish did not become the top banana until the late 1950s. Before that the American banana of choice was the Gros Michel.

The Gros Michel dominated the banana market from the 1890s to the 1950s. It grows in large, tight bunches with thick skins that are resistant to bruising and have a long ripening time. These traits made this variety ideal for shipping from Central America to the U. S.

Sadly, the Gros Michel is no longer able to be grown on a commercial scale. It fell victim to the fungal disease fusarium wilt. Fusarium wilt is difficult to control. It spreads easily and can persist in the soil for decades meaning areas that were previously infected cannot be quickly replanted. The Cavendish rose to popularity not because of its superior taste but because it is resistant to the strain of fusarium wilt that wiped out the Gros Michel.

It is thought by some that artificial banana flavor was created to imitate the Gros Michel rather than the Cavendish. The main chemical responsible for artificial banana flavoring is isoamyl acetate. The Gros Michel has a higher concentration of this chemical than the more mildly flavored Cavendish.

One problem with this theory is that artificial banana flavoring was being sold as far back as the 1850s, about 40 years before Gros Michel became popular. Most people in the United States had not tried an actual banana at that time. They were something of a novelty and luxury item. Despite their rarity there was a wider variety of bananas being imported, including red bananas. It is possible that artificial banana flavor was modeled after one of these rather than the Gros Michel.

About the banana-flavored candy, we might ask a different question: “What kind of bananas are we tasting? “

Crystal Kelly is a feature writer for Bizarre Bytes with those unusual facts that you only need to know for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy or to stump your in-laws.