Depending on who you believe, 2007 is — or isn’t — the 100th anniversary of the world’s first banana split.
 
In 1907, Ernest Hazard was looking for a way to spark sales at his Wilmington, Ohio, diner. Hazard juxtaposed a banana with three scoops of ice cream, added some crushed nuts, a few dollops of syrup and, just like that, a slice of Americana was born.

Trouble was, a restaurateur from up-the-road Latrobe, Penn., claimed to have invented that same confection three years earlier.

“They are very aware of our claim, as we are of theirs,” says Debbie Stamper, director of the Wilmington visitors bureau. “We have a friendly battle, which has been going on for years.”

Stamper has even invited a few Latrobe types to Wilmington’s 13th annual Banana Split Festival (June 8-9) when her town will officially toast the frozen treat’s centennial.

“Bad idea? I’m not sure,” Stamper says. “A banana split food fight could be a little messy.”

Kevin King, owner of the Banana Boat, Winnipeg’s undisputed home of the heterogeneous dessert, is familiar with that debate.

“I researched it a few years ago myself,” he says. “Except that I read that it was invented at a Chicago World’s Fair by somebody who couldn’t sell his bananas. I also read that it was originally called a banana boat, not a split, because of the dish it came in.”

The Banana Boat is currently marking a milestone of its own. It’s been 30 years since original owners Bill and Diane Reid opened the business, a cone’s throw from Confusion Corner at 390 Osborne St. (The distinctive blue and yellow building has been there since 1952. Before the Reids purchased and renamed it in 1977, it was one of Winnipeg’s original Dairy Queen franchises.)

King paid his initial visit to the Banana Boat almost 20 years ago while on a date. He became friends with Bill Reid via a mutual love of old cars. When Reid was slow to open in 2000 for personal reasons, King asked if there was anything he could do to help. A handshake deal was worked out a day later.

South Osborne residents dying for something good to read were relieved when the Banana Boat re-opened in mid-March.

“If you live in Riverview and head downtown, it’s a daily rite of passage to see what’s on their sign,” says area local/Strike! impresario Danny Schur of the ice cream parlour’s you-can’t-miss-it public bulletin board. In season, King posts messages trumpeting birthdays, anniversaries and proposals.

“I used it for our 10th anniversary and my wife used it for my 40th (birthday),” Schur says.

“It is funny,” says King. “You stand out front and watch people drive by — they all read one side, then turn around and read the other.” (King charges $15 — roughly the cost of three Hallmark cards — for use of the space.)

The Banana Boat comes by its name honestly: King goes through a few hundred pounds of the fruit every week.

The take-out stand also joins an exclusive list of local landmarks whose menu items habitually pop up on expats’ to-get lists. In the same way that former ’Peggers clamour for Jeanne’s cakes and Gondola pizza, the Banana Boat’s banana-banana milkshake has a fanbase all its own.

“One guy who now lives in Sioux Narrows always drops by when he’s in town,” says King. “He buys four or five shakes — packs ’em up in his cooler – then drinks ’em one after another on his way home.”

UPDATE

“If this gets out, it could mean the end of the Liberal Party of Canada,” warned a local politico, requesting anonymity.

And what, pray tell, has the Grits so up in arms? It seems that when Stéphane Dion touched down in Winnipeg last month, he and his entourage popped by North End mega-icon Kelekis for lunch. There, Dion shocked locals and his handlers by eating Kelekis’s world-famous hot dog with — gasp! — a knife and fork.

“It conjured images of George on Seinfeld eating a Snickers bar the same way,” said another witness who, for obvious reasons, also asked not to be named.

Whether Stephen Harper’s Conservatives use Wienergate to their advantage — at press time there was no word whether they’d be rejigging their official slogan to read Getting Things Done (Without Utensils) — remains to be seen.