ATHLETICS:. . . we'd just take it as a compliment. As everybody and Andy Warhol knows, it's the king of all fruits

WE STOPPED by to see Con Houlihan on Thursday evening, and there he was, looking well, still shifting through the daily newspapers – and a reminder that if there is a better-read man in Ireland then he’s no longer with us. Liam suggested we bring Con something “sweet” – which must be some old Kerry tradition. “And I’m after forgetting the marmalade,” he said. So I told him there were some bananas in my bag. “Grand,” he said, “they’ll do grand.”

Mashed up for the young, sliced up for the old, craved by any man or woman who has ever sweated to exhaustion, is there any other fruit with such unrivalled span of usefulness, such ideal hand-to-fruit sized ratio, as the humble banana?

“They won’t be let go bad anyway,” said Con, eyeing them up hungrily. I told him the most delicious bananas on earth are in Kenya – and although he’s never been there, he agreed to agree. Among the many pleasures of those three weeks on the edge of the Great Rift Valley last month, living and breathing among the hardest-training distance runners of all, was the rich bounty of bananas laid out before us after each run, and a side-serving at every breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Indeed though long ignored, and once nearly wiped out, bananas are now the stable ally of distance runners around the world. The Kenyans average at least six or seven each day – and while hygiene sometimes was an issue, I could freely pick up a banana any time out there, peel back its naturally sterile skin, and start happily munching away.

Bananas might lack the crunchy bite of an apple, or the sweet juice of an orange; they might be considered a little too mushy, or too bland; and they might not be the prettiest fruit either. But it doesn’t take the man from Del Monte to present a more accessible, affordable and practical fruit, with such perfect nutritional value to suggest maybe we were born to run after all.

It explains why bananas are now a compulsory feature of every road race, whether it’s a local 5km or the Boston Marathon. I made the mistake of ringing Frank Greally last July, the evening before his Irish Runner five-mile road race, when he clearly had his hands full: he was collecting 5,000 bananas in the Dublin Fruit Market.

Bananas, as any Junior Cert student can tell you, are a great source of potassium, which we all lose while sweating. But like any distance runner I can tell you a lot more: three-quarters water, the rest mostly carbohydrate, the average banana is considered to weigh 100 grams, without the skin, and contain 85 calories. Bananas also contain small amounts of protein and fibre, trace amounts of fat, and the remainder is ash, although they’re also rich in Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin C. Bananas also contain useful amounts of magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, iodine, copper, zinc and iron, plus a little bit of sodium – all of which help make bananas nature’s perfect isotonic food.

What the banana is lacking is also its strength: low in fat, low in salt, it’s also coeliac-friendly, and alright for diabetics too, preferably with a dollop of fresh cream. Bananas also boast adjustable carbohydrate chemistry: for the quick sugar rush eat them a golden yellow; for the slower energy release eat them a yellowish green. Either way, the sugar content of the banana is entirely utilisable by the human body. Given they only grow around the tropical equator, there’s a whole industry in the proper ripening of the banana, and their tender, loving transport.

To bear fruit banana plants need at least 14 consecutive months of frost-free weather. Under the right conditions they’ll soon flourish into 10-20 foot plants, with as many as 170 bananas on each stalk. They’re easily cropped too, partly explained by the fact that the banana is fruit, but the plant is actually the world’s largest herb. And bananas are always harvested green, or unripe, and therefore unlike an apple, never at their best when freshly picked. And don’t forget the lyrics of the official Chiquita Banana Song: “Bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator, so you should never put bananas into the refrigerator.”

Kenyan bananas, I was told, have a special taste, but are actually of the same Cavendish variety which these days make up 99 per cent of the worldwide banana export market. Pity, because there are around 1,000 other varieties – bananas with green and white stripes, bananas that taste like strawberries, and the small bananas known as plantains, which are total starch and inedible until cooked. But because of their high yield, and relatively strong endurance, the world’s banana plantations are a monoculture of Cavendishes.

Bananas have also worked their way beyond the fruit markets, and into such show-biz classics as I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones and Yes! We Have No Bananas – and even onto one of the great album covers of our time: for their debut release in 1967, The Velvet Underground Nico chose the simple Andy Warhol print of a banana, decorated only with his signature, and invitation to “Peel slowly and see”. (This was loosely inspired by the idea that smoking banana skins can get you high – an urban legend.)

Then of course there is the awkwardly phallic aspect: Let me put my banana in your fruit basket, the line from an old blues song, says it all, and we were actually taught in school that Eve tempted Adam not with the apple but the banana. It’s no secret that for years scientists have been working to develop the “straight” banana, presumably just for commercial reasons. Ironically, most bananas are sterile, at least the cultivated ones: they don’t have seeds, and they can’t cross-fertilise – which also explains their consistency.

Unfortunately, for phallic reasons or otherwise, some people still have an issue with eating bananas in public, at least without the complete lack of self-consciousness of the chimpanzee. It’s probably not the coolest thing to be caught doing, although Leonard Cohen didn’t mind when photographed for the front cover of his 1988 album I’m Your Man, dressed in a pin-strip suit, wearing dark glasses, and holding a half-eaten banana.

There is also that uncomfortable moment when the peel starts to drape over the hand, quickly rotting in the process. And unlike the apple core, which can be simply thrown away almost anywhere, safe in the knowledge that it will soon blossom into a lovely orchard, the banana skin must be safely discarded for fear it might actually turn into a death trap, should someone happen to step on it in a hurry.

Perhaps there is no such thing as the perfect fruit after all, although for distance runners, the banana must be as close as it gets – and while those who don’t understand us might consider us bananas, we consider the comparison a compliment.