The Banana Bonanza Evinces Some Winces

Need a smile? Try saying The Dole Banana Bonanza (1977) five times fast. 

And maybe some of the recipes would bring a smile to your face too, like the Jamaican Cream Pie (with a brown butter rum crust) or the Banana Streusel Coffee Cake. You know you're not getting those recipes here, though. Nope. I'm not in the business of making anyone smile. I mostly prefer wincing.

That's why I'm posting a sad Slim Jane Salad:

Loaded with bean sprouts, soy sauce, banana, celery, cucumber, radishes, green onion, and despair.

Or maybe, for a more indulgent take on a weird salad, I'll post the Mystery Salad:

Surprise! Those aren't potatoes! They're boiled green bananas with potato salad ingredients. There's no real mystery here, though. Why use bananas instead of the standard potatoes? Dole wants to sell more bananas. Isn't that all the reason you need?

Maybe the most wince-inducing recipe will be the guacamole-adjacent Sally's Secret Dip.

Yep! The secret is that usually the lump in the avocado-and-cream-cheese dip is a piece of banana, but occasionally it's a bit of raw onion. There's a fun guessing game that might well call for a wince.

My favorite recipe, though, is arguably less weird than any of these. I winced a little just because of the short story the title conjured in my mind.

Somebody has been working hard all morning. Maybe welding together Firebird parts, or welding together Caprice parts while pretending they were actually Firebird parts, or whatever hard workers did in the late '70s. Then the noon whistle blows. Time for a hearty lunch! The worker has been dreaming of a big slab of cold meatloaf, or maybe thick layers of ham and cheese on rye. And then he opens up the battered lunchbox to find a Tupperware containing a banana spread with a dab of thyme-and-walnut cream cheese hiding amidst a jumble of lettuce, olives, carrot sticks, and a couple thin slices of cooked salami. That's a big wince, right there. And maybe it's a hint that the worker might want to pack his own damn lunch in the future.

And now I'm smiling a little at that thought....