Bananas

0603 bananas
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Right now, this is an impossible photo.

On supermarket and fruit shop shelves, there isn't a writhing mass of yellow fruit, just a few bananas - a dozen or two at most. The price tag is astronomical in comparison to what we've been used to - $11 per kilo and up, which can run at $2 per banana or more. People walk past, and look, and walk on, shaking their head at the cost.

In March, when this photo was taken, they were under $5/kilo, and probably lower. And back then, if one went riper than you liked, you could chuck it in the freezer for banana cake or banana muffin use, and think nothing of it. Now, you watch 'em like a hawk and savour every bite. Hasn't Cyclone Larry in Queensland changed our view? I've never heard a fruit so talked of as the banana is on radio right now. I've heard people talking about their holidays in terms of how they could eat cheap good bananas every day. 99c/kilo in New Zealand! Cheap as chips in the US!

They're saying a new crop is coming through, and soon....soon...sometime in the next few months we can enjoy them like we used to, with profligate pleasure through the day. And maybe, until we forget, we'll still savour them in their abundance as we do now.