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- Title:
- A Banana or Adam’s Briefs?
- Description:
- Pigafetta recorded that banana was eaten in the Philippines. On March 18, 1521 natives gave some. He called the fruit FIGUE, fig. In Spanish fig is HIGUERA. The banana is called HIGUERA DE ADÁN, Adam’s fig. It was believed the banana caused humankind’s damnation (not the apple) and that Adam dressed in its leaves giving it another term, CALZONES or BRAGAS DE ADÁN, Adam’s underpants. It is claimed Spanish knew the banana before the 1492 voyage of Columbus. Arabs may have brought the banana from its cradle of origin, the Eastern Indies to Europe. The term banana traces perhaps to a West African word, BANAANA. The botanical may have been introduced to the American continents from Africa around 1516, just 3 years before Magallanes and Pigafetta sailed off on their voyage. New science has found, though, that banana was dispersed and cultivated in prehistory.
- Subjects:
- Banana Fruit
- Exhibition:
- Magellan Menu
- Source:
- a painting by Lozano, 1847
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "A Banana or Adam’s Briefs?", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll036.html