Fruit of Fascist Empire

This article investigates Italian banana plantations in Somalia and the Mediterranean fruit trade under Fascism. Bananas were the first African addition to Benito Mussolini's culinary battles for "homegrown" crops like grain, rice, grapes, and oranges. To brand Somali bananas as Italian, the regime promoted its own agricultural techniques and technology in the empire. The Istituto Agricolo Coloniale in Florence developed new banana cultivars for the Centri di Raccolta Banana (experimental banana plantations) in Somalia. The Regio Azienda Monopolio Banane then imported the engineered fruits to Rome on refrigerated flotillas. Marketing campaigns like "La banana è il pane degli dei" pushed Italian housewives to purchase fruit at banana kiosks, known as La Casa della Banana. Today, the Duce's culinary battles continue, as politicians use bananas to symbolize sub-Saharan African migration to Italy. At stake in the Somali banana lies the question of what is, and is not, Italian

Agriculture · Ancient history · Archaeology · Biology · Geography · Somali · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Horticulture