Banana flavoured candy doesn't really taste like banana. Or anything artificially banana flavoured for that matter.

Except they actually do. It's the banana that doesn't taste real. Or at least what was used to be the real banana until 1950s.

Before that, the cultivar called Gros Michel was the main type of banana grown and sold. But during fifties it was almost completely wiped out by the fungus based Panama plague. But not before it had already found it's way to candies in the form of artificial flavour that is still used today in candies.

So yes, the old Gros Michel tasted more like the candies of today. And for us, who have accustomed to more bland flavour of current dominant cultivar Cavendish, the taste of those sweets modelled after the more flavourful cultivar taste like a fake.

Sure, the flavour is probably not the perfect imitation of the original taste. There are always some differences when trying to replicate natural flavours. Would be interesting to have a chance to taste one of those so called original bananas for comparison. Would they really taste the same?

There should be some of those still available. Cultivated in safety from all those diseases. The same ones that supposedly have mutated and are now threatening the current crop of Cavendish.