Great Uncle Fred, why do bananas have skins? (Anonymous, Autumn 2008)

Eh? Why do bananas have skins? Without skins they would not be bananas! But seriously, if the edible part of the banana were exposed to the air and the plant had found some way to hold its seeds other than within its skin, then the insects and the birds and the beasties would have got there first, gobbled up all the bananas before humans had even invented the word "banana". A fruit is the ripened ovary of the plant. It grows from the plant`s flowers and it holds the plant`s seeds. Its purpose is to be eaten, spread the seeds far and wide, keep the species going. Even though most of the bananas we eat are especially bred not to hold seeds, the skin still does an excellent job protecting the bit we eat until we come to eat it. Also, of course, bananas are essentially comic and cheerful. As well as carbohydrates and other good things, they contain serotonin, which cheers us up and it helps that their yellowness and curviness is somehow so pleasing and delightful to see in the fruit bowl; they are unique, distinct. Their look, their image, the skin, encourages us to eat them, and that is all that a fruit can hope for. The grapefruit should learn a few things from the banana: grapefruits are so delicious but there is something about the skin which means they sit in the fruit bowl for weeks (they take ages to go off) until finally thrown away. One more thing - banana-skins really are very slippy and if bananas had no skins we would have to invent a whole new metaphor for the unexpected hazard. Oh yes, we need banana skins, humans as well as bananas.

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