The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-10-15
THE BANANA AS FOOD.
Beer, Bread, Sausa2es ard Meal
Are Among It's Possibilities.

Are Among It's possibilities.
An innocent barrel of banana
meal was last week the cause of
curious complication between the
Department of Agriculture at Wash
ington, the custom house at New
York, the United States Express
Company and Mr.. Francis J. Gels,
of No. 700 East 140th street, says
the New York World. The meal
was sent by the government of the
island of Jamaica as present to
the United States government, and
as Mr.. Gels had been instrumental
in arousing the interest which has
led up to the manufacture of such
meal, the business of forwarding it
to Washington after its arrival in
New York was intrusted to him by
the Jamaica authorities. He per-
formed his work by giving the bill
of lading to the United States Ex-
press Company, with instructions
to forward the meal to Edwin Will
let's, assistant secretary of agricul-
ture.
1t did not go. The Custom House
officers here, knowing that there is
duty of 20 per cent. on banana
meal as a manufactured product,
held it, and an order from the
Treasury Department is now neces-
sary before Uncle Sam can get the
gift that was sent to him without
paying himself the duty he has i'm
posed upon it.
The gift of a single barrel of ba-
mana meal from one government to
another is one of curiously trihing
pecuniary value, but it is one
which may lead to results so vast
and important that they are hardly
to be estimated at present. The
contents of this sample barrel are
to be distributed in small sample
packages to such planters in this
country as shall signify their in
tention to embark in the business
of manufacturing the meal.
The banana is one of the most
valuable food products of the
earth. No other vegetable COM
pares with it in productiveness, as
Humboldt pointed out, and none
other is as rich in pure food con-
stituents. Yet it is in one sense al
most a neglected product. Ba-
nanas are eaten as fruit more and
more every year, but until now
hardly anything has been attempt
ed in the way of making a staple
meal from them, although banana
meal was known as long ago as the
time of the Montezumas.
1t has been supposed that this
meal could not be made in man
ner to keep, but recent experiments
have proved that it may be.
Several governments = notably
those of England, Germany and
the United States-have now be-
come interested in the question,
and it is altogether likely that
within few months the manufac-
ture of banana meal will be an
established industry in various
parts of the world.
Mr.. Gels has shown that the ripe
banana, put up in tin cans with
condensed milk, makes an almost
ideally perfect food that will keep
as we'll as any other canned pro-
duct; that the meal can be
manufactured economically by
simple processes from the raw
or unripe fruit in such way
as to keep as well as wheat flour
that a sausage can be made of the
partially ripe fruit, which, when
thoroughly dried, will keep in any
climate, and moreover, he has dem
onstrated that the meal, being a
pure starch, can be utilized not on
ly in the making of bread, but in
the brewing of beer in a way to
save and make fortunes.
1t is claimed that a really in
delible ink and a superior article
of vinegar can be produced from
the juices contained in the banana
peel. The fiber of the peel, it is
said, can also be utilized in max
ing cloth of great strength and re-
markable beauty.
In the elaboration of his plans,
Mr.. Gels has taken out a great
number of patents in the United
States and several other countries
covering his methods of cul-
tivating the banana plant and of
manufacturing the meal. He has,
after procuring the patents, given
them to the government so that
the planters of the country may
manufacture the meal free of any
charges to him or to any other
patentee. His reason for doing
this is to advance the manufacture
of the meal as rapidly as possible.
There is not at present, he says, a
single ton of the meal in the world
and it is needed by the millions Of
pounds by the brewers of the coun-
: try, who are anxious to use it in
making beer.
Ill I, =,