TheBanyanTree: Smoking banana peel

[Peter Macinnis]

Somebody asked me the other day where I get those obscure bits of
information. The answer is that it is in my job. One part of me is
more like a reference librarian than anything else, and with my strong
interest in Australian culture, I can often provide fresh insights, as
happened in a recent case, where the question related to people
smoking banana peel in gaol (or jail) in the USA.

As this happens to be my area of current research for a Master's
degree in pathological gastronomy at the University of Anson Bay, I
provided a more complete answer than usual, and as a number of people
have described it as new to them, I thought I might share it here, to
help people improve their cross-cultural perspective.  I realise that
some parts may be surprising to non-Australian readers, but the other
Australians on the list should be able to confirm a number of the
facts.

peter

*****************

The truth about smoking banana peel

The problem here is that myth has taken over from reality. The whole
legend began in Australia, where smoked banana peel is a delicacy in
northern regions - not smoked like tobacco, but smoked like salmon.
Banana peel requires smoking for at least 72 hours with the leaves of
the Gocha vine, itself mildly hallucinogenic, especially in the case
of G. buddi, otherwise known as the lawyer vine because of the way it
hooks you and doesn't let go. Lawyers of my acquaintance have another
name for it which I cannot reproduce here*.

The psychotropically-laden smoked banana peel is quite harmless, as
the active end of the molecule is tenaciously linked to the
captanmercaptan complex of the xylo-phloemic strands in the peel, and
remains there, inaccessible to thrill seekers, so it is sold quite
openly, and few know about the perils lurking within smoked banana
peel, sold as Noosa Musa. (Note, when I say harmless, it is extremely
slippery, and may be the origin of all those slapstick gags about
banana peel - the product was certainly available in California in the
early 20th century, as Jack London was importing it, so it would have
been known to early Hollywood movie makers.)

In technical terms, the active constituents are tied down in a
clathrate 'cage' in the Gocha leaf, but smoking releases the molecule
(tetrahydrocanonobol) as free radicals which then migrate into the
banana skin where they are resorbed in a chelated form that can only
be released by passage through the intestinal tract of Bufo marinus
(the introduced 'cane toad'). The water soluble analog is stored in
the skin of the toad, and the common practise among the ravaged
practitioners (the 'Bjelke Johs', a name of uncertain origin which
apparently indicates their mental status) is to boil toads down in a
billy, starting with a live toad in warm water and slowly raising the
temperature so as not to alarm the toad or denature the active
constituents.

(Note that frogs and toads normally will only eat moving food, but the
method used to force feed geese in making pate de foie gras has been
adapted successfully.  This cruel practice is the main reason why the
authorities are trying to prevent the use of smoked banana peel in
Australia.)

The boiled toad slowly congeals to become a dark brown paste with as
much as 2% THCB, a paste that is sold and traded across Australia in
characteristic jars with yellow plastic tops (to denote the banana
origins). It can be harmlessly ingested (which is just as well, as
children like the taste, and smear it on bread), harmfully injected,
or inhaled to interesting effect. One of the most common illusions is
said to be a view of Mount Lamington, but chocolate in colour, and
flecked with white. This is probably because one of the more fancied
varieties has a picture of that mountain, though in natural colours.

So the "getting high" is in fact a reference to views, distant or
near, of Mount Lamington. When a group of former convicts, known as
the Sydney Ducks, moved to California in 1849 to seek for gold, the
information, slightly garbled, was carried across (incidentally, this
bunch was so wild that rough justice was applied, hence the expression
"kangaroo court"), and when they ended up in US jails, the legend went
with them.

Owing to the lack of cane toads in northern America, there is no real
prospect of US convicts "getting high" on the product, and the picture
of Mount Lamington is never used on jars of the product any more.  In
any case, the banana peel was only a secondary substrate for the
psychotropic substances derived from the G. buddi leaves, and those,
also, are unavailable.

I note that there is a high rate of loss among amphibians in parts of
the USA, but I have no evidence that this is in any way related. Law
enforcement authorities should, however, be on the lookout for glass
cases containing frogs and toads and check to see if there are any
small funnels nearby.  It would not be too difficult for a full-blown
case of banana peel abuse to hit America, producing laconic grins,
slow speech, and a tendency to brush invisible flies away from the
face in the victims. These are fearful symptoms when confronted in
large numbers of people at one time.

NOTE: it is essential that straight bananas be used. All Queensland
bananas are of a clonal strain that produces naturally straight
bananas, and a law, originally based on an outraged sense of decency,
was carried in the Queensland Upper House, requiring that bananas be
steam-treated and bent. While the 'decency' issue is no longer a
problem, market expectation is, and so bananas are still bent as a
matter of course, and the steam heating destroys the molecular
structure in the peel, rendering it useless for capturing the active
molecules.

-------------------

* This is not a matter of decency, so much as the inability of the
normal ASCII set to reproduce phonetically the name they give it.