The intrepid author search New York City high and low for Big Mike bananas and could not find them, eventually ordering them from a grower in Miami. "The few countries that still produce the Gros Michel today mostly do so under another name... the world’s largest banana firms don’t sell it—Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte have their hands full with Cavendishes—so any fruit with a recognizable blue and yellow sticker is automatically out.":
- Thihmwe in Myanmar
- Pisang Ambon in Malaysia
- Bluefields in Hawai’i.
