I've tried a small handful of different bananas (maybe a half-dozen?) and nah. Cavendish is above average. Certainly there are better, and more varieties being available would be awesome, but Cavendish is nowhere near the bottom of the pack.
Red Delicious apples, now, those belong in the dustbin of history :) Perhaps we can do to banana varieties what we did to apples and have nice wide variety to choose from at the store.
I used to work in a grocery store. I had a conversation with the lady in Floral (she was ancient) about Red Delicious apples. I guess they used to actually be delicious, so she says. Something went wrong over the years.
One thing I can tell you from experience is that they're weirdly resistant to decay. Everything else will go bad in patches. If you've got a bad orange, you've probably got eight partially bad oranges next to it. I saw a bad red delicious apple once, the rest of the case was pristine.
I much prefer pies that are baked with a very tart apple, which mellows out and gives lots of complex flavour when cooked. Back home we had "cooking apples" especially meant for this which were basically inedible when raw. Now I'm in the US and can't find such apples and can't stand the apple pies here that are overly sweet and bland.
Have you tried going to a farmers market? Ask the sellers what apple to use for pie, and they'll direct you to cooking apples. This is especially true if you go to an Amish market.
I usually use half Grannie Smith and half something more aromatic in a pie. The Grannie provides firmness and tartness and the other varieties provide more appleiness. I control the sweetness with how much sugar I add, usually using less than the recipes call for.
hard to find commercially in the US but we tend to call them "crabapples" (many crabapples are too small or only suitable for juicing but some are large enough for culinary use), or you can look for some cider homebrewing enthusiasts who may know how to source tart/dry apples in your area.
My favourite apple variety right now is the organic Cripp, aka Pink Lady. Lovely aroma and flavours. I used to eat Granny Smiths in my youth, but they're too tart and green compared to those nice organic Cripps.
I have nothing to cite but, just based on their ubiquity, I would bet $5 against the hole in a bagel that Cavendish bananas produce more per acre than any other variety.
And some of that Cavendish preference is strictly cosmetic. Some varieties will blemish easily but still taste great inside for a while, while Cavendish blemishing means you’ve got 1-2 days tops to consume it.
Shipping, and relatedly, it will mature somewhat after picking. I suspect, much like a tomato, the closer you pick it to ripe, the better it actually is.
Nendran can be eaten either raw (i.e. ripe, but uncooked) or boiled,
often with a little jaggery and spices like cardamom. People who don't like raw ripe Nendran may find the cooked variant tastes good, although it is not like the experience of eating a fresh banana. More like eating a cooked dessert, vaguely like a Western pudding. IMO the mealiness becomes a plus when it is eaten way.
