Crazy! The foods that define it

There are three foods, and evidently only three, that scream crazy.

Bananas, nuts, and crackers.

Why?

Bananas likely came from the slang of flappers in the 1920s, the women who — with their bobbed hair, loose dresses, and liberated ways — talked in a sort of hip code. One of their key phrases: Banana Oil, meaning nonsense.

Or it might have come from monkeys who go nuts in anticipation of bananas.

Which brings us to nuts.

There are at least 11 definitions of nut ranging from the hard-shelled seed to body parts and, of course, mental state, according to Atlas Obscura.

As early as 1785, being nuts about someone meant you thought about that person all the time. It wasn’t until 1908 when the comic strip Mutt and Jeff suggested that people acting crackers were “off the nut.”

Which brings us to crackers.

In the UK, where crackers are called biscuits, one can ‘drive someone crackers.’ The word cracked did show up in World War 1 reports from soldiers. It may be a short trip from describing someone as cracked to, unhelpfully, calling him or her a cracker.

That kind of reference could drive someone bananas.