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Suppose we all have certain foods or odors, like turnips or white wine vinegar, that turn our stomachs but in most gastronomical matters, I strive to be a pluralist. When it comes to bananas, though, I can make no exception. Just the sight of them, blotched with sarcoma like an old man's wattle or sliced into slimy half-moons that peek between flakes and milk, makes me avert my eyes. Obviously the Freudians among you will cite shape, but it's more than that. I have a distinct memory of the moment of unconcealment when, as a child, I opened my lunch box and took out an overripe banana to bite into its flesh, only to discover the true nature of disgust. When I was in the Philippines, I was told the banana-plant in folklore had grown from the severed arm of a thwarted lover, buried in the ground until it sprouted yellow fingers....