These are from the banana tree at Capi's Apartment in April. They are fully ripe, green bananas. They taste just like yellow bananas, and they are delicious. The yellow bananas in the bunch are overripe - still good, but you have to eat them fast.
Miguel shared the bunch with neighbors and brought a big bunch home. We ate the bananas every day and served them to our guests in the morning fruit bowl. Then Miguel went to Oaxaca and left me with about 15 very ripe bananas. I ate what I could but then they got to the stage of over-ripeness, and if there's one thing I don't like, it's over-ripe, mushy bananas. (there are lots of other things I don't like, but this story is about bananas).
I hated to throw out the bananas so decided I would make banana bread. Since the bananas were attracting fruit flies, I stuffed them in the fridge. Then I got busy around the house and didn't get around to making the banana bread. Sadly, the bananas ended up in the compost.
Yesterday there was a smaller bunch of green bananas on the counter. As I tried to peel the banana I noticed that it was not peeling nicely, and the banana inside was hard. I popped a piece on my mouth and it tasted like wooden chalk. Blah!
Miguel later informed me that those bananas came from the market, and they are yellow bananas, and were very unripe as green bananas. Beware the green banana!
There are different types of bananas here too. Normal bananas, as we think of them, and then 'macho', which are usually the ones fried and put on the side of your meal. On Friday Miguel prepared platano macho for our guests - fried, topped with jam and crema. Delicious!
So, when you buy bananas here, make sure you know if they are green or yellow, and normal or macho. Otherwise you'll get a surprise.
7 comments:
WOW! That is a lot of bananas. Too bad they went to waste.
I think you would have done better to freeze them pending making bread
there are a large variety of bananas around the world - some are even red or purple - some are eaten only cooked - some other parts of the plant are savored - such as the hearts - some cultivars are only consumed in tropical climates as they do not keep, some can be transported to temperate climates
I only learned recently why the bananas we eat today don't seem to taste as good as the ones I remember from my childhood....its an entirely different variety. The bananas from my childhood were called Gros Michel - which was smaller and sweeter - it secumbed in the mid 1960s to Panamanian disease - a fungus which destroys its roots...it was replaced in the mid 1960s by the Cavendish cultivar which comes from VietNam...interesting time sequence don't you think? It holds up very well and ripens slower than most bananas so makes an excellent export
Sue: what I do with overripe "leftover" bananas is to peel them, break them into 3 or 4 chunks, put them in little ziploc baggies and freeze them for use making smoothies in the blender.
Easy to do: pour the juice of your choice into the blender, put in frozen chunks of banana and blend.
With the frozen banana, you don't have to add ice, the frozen banana gets the smoothie just cold enough.
I learned this trick years and years ago when I worked the deli counter at a hippie grocery store (LOL)
Craig would be in heaven with that big bunch of bananas! He loves bananas in the tropics. When we're in Kauai, he drives around looking for the little fruit stands. And he hates green (yellow) bananas. And most of the bananas you buy in the store around here are very unripe! I'll have Craig read this post!
And Scott, there's a place on Kauai called Banana Joe's where they make smoothies and ice cream cones that are 100% banana. It is SO wonderful!
Wow. I never knew there were so many banana options. I knew about the plantains and the yellows, but not the rest. We get baby bananas here that are much smaller than the full sized and they are very sweet. I call them my 2 bite bananas.
Happy Mother's Day Sue!! Thank you for being Mommy to the little orphans.
I have concluded I do not eat enough bananas. Being in the tropics, for some reason from my earlier experiences, I don't think of it as a special tropic fruit. Speaking of which, there is a nice ripe champagne mango waiting for me!
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