From a particular style of desert boot to a lost blend of tea, our writers mourn the products they once treasured that have been cruelly discontinued
For some time I have been consumed by the thought that I no longer like bananas because I’m hankering for an extinct variety I tasted only as a small child. This didn’t occur to me until I read – maybe 10 years ago – that the universally grown Gros Michel variety disappeared due to blight, to be replaced by the now universal, and allegedly less good, Cavendish, sometime in the early 1960s. Recent research suggests there are a lot of people out there with a kind of obsession for this lost banana. The good news is I could order some from a specialist grower in Florida; the bad news is it would cost $360.
Tim Dowling
