The Origins of the Banana

The banana was the most popular fruit at a Philadelphia exhibition in 1876. Local grocers would take a banana peel it put it in tinfoil and then serve it with a fork and a knife for 10 cents which was about an hour's wage worth of work. A Cape Cod sea captain named Lorenzo Baker who happened upon the banana in Jamaica and brought it back with him to New Jersey and sold them. They sold so quickly that he was like oh my gosh this is a business. By 1885 he and a businessman from Boston named Andrew Preston created the Boston fruit company and sold the bananas more widely throughout America.