From the Sunday book revieuws:
"Forget the apple; Eve ,as the American journalist Dan Koeppel explains in his book
Banana, The Fate of the Fruit that changed the World, was most probably seduced by the banana. According to Koeppels British collegue Peter Chapman, who wrote a book about the United Fruit Company -
the firm that made the banana great - it wasn't a fig leaf Adam and Eve covered there shame with, but the leaf of a banana tree. Even Linnaeus, apples don't thrive in the Middle East, place the banana tree in the garden of Eden instead of the apple tree.Seems more logic.
The fig leaf comes from a translation error; in Hebrew bananas are called ' figs of Eve'. (?) Compare the the deep forked fig leaf to the mini skirt seized banana leaf and what could be the most probable?"
Two writers wrote a book about the influence of the banana culture on the the course of world history:
http://www.bananabook.org/ http://www.amazon.com/Bananas-United-Fruit-Company-Shaped/dp/1841958816 (
the linker refuses to work so I leave the http's like this)
What I would like to know, Is the story of the mistranslation true or untrue?.
