In search of a BANANA SPLIT Cairns, Australia

The inspiration for this article is the song ‘Banana Split For My Baby’ by Louis Prima, as featured in the 1959 movie ‘Hey Boy! Hey Girl!’.

In this movie, Louis orders a massive Banana Split about three foot long for his then wife, Keelie Smith, and you see the chef building it up with piles of ice cream, whipped cream and all manner of fruit and nuts. Check out the clip of this on YouTube.

We have recently returned from travelling in eastern Australia. Driving from the art deco buildings of Innisfail to the beach-bum environments of Cairns and then Mission Beach we passed by many banana plantations and fields of sugar cane and dairy cattle. By the time we reached the coast and a couple of days to relax, the vision of a Banana Split was uppermost in Paul’s mind, although his idea of one was not quite as ambitious as Louis’.

Down on the seafront in Cairns we found a shop called Mõvenpick selling fruit and ice cream. This looked the best place to try for a Banana Split. We must thank the staff here because although a Banana Split was not on the menu, they rose to the challenge and fixed one up for him. There was some discussion at the start as to what was required and within a few minutes, Paul was sat with the creation you see in one of our first photos, consisting of banana, cream, ice cream, strawberries, raspberries and chocolate sprinkles. Not bad, Paul thought and he tucked in to this very pleasing dessert.