Had this thought about bananas today. It’s the world’s most popular fruit, according to statistics, the average American eats 27 lbs of bananas every year. And yet, there really aren’t that many iconic recipes that feature bananas. There’s the few that everyone can name: banana pudding, banana splits, banana smoothies, banana bread. But once you move past those, it’s a pretty niche ingredient as far as composed dishes go.
Can anyone else think of other foodstuffs where there’s such a big disparity between how much we eat it out of hand vs how little we use it in a recipe?
Wouldn’t that be the same for most fruits? As for vegetables, I think the usual way I get celery is when I eat a stalk of it, instead of as an ingredient in other things, AFAIK.
A restaurant we used to go to decades ago had an exquisite variation of that, involving bananas, several types of liqueur (I only remember Grand Marnier being one of them), vanilla ice cream, and probably other things I’ve forgotten. It was set ablaze at table side. I don’t remember if the ice cream was part of the inferno or if it was added later. There was no sugar involved – the Grand Marnier provided the sweetness.
It was so good that at some point I asked for the recipe, and the restaurant cheerfully provided it. I put it into a cookbook I have which is still packed away from the last move. I’m going to have to dig it out and recreate this ambrosia!
In Eur-american culture, maybe. But there are plenty of iconic African, Asian, Caribbean and South American banana dishes.
Oh, and in before the pedants:
" Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between “bananas” and “plantains”. […]In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the binary distinction is not as useful and is not made in local languages."
We only cook bananas on barbeques. Take a fairly green banana, slice it open lengthwise still in its skin, insert chocolate flakes, wrap it in foil and put it on the hot coals while you eat the main course.
First one that came to my mind is grapes. We eat them fresh, some put them in Jello molds, and of course there is wine, but otherwise, they don’t cook well, and there may be few recipies that call for grapes (not raisins - I know they are added to a lot of cooked dishes).
I nominate watermelon. Other than cubing/scooping it for fruit salad and perhaps a handful of boutique uses in recipes … watermelon consumption has to be 99% straight from the rind.
I mean, it’s obvious, but very little animal based protein is eaten out of hand without being cooked or otherwise treated (even jerky, or tartare require a good bit of processing).
But as @LSLGuy pointed out, that’s more in the reverse scenario that may be out of scope.
I do find that fresh fruit in the US is almost always eaten out of hand, but canned or frozen fruit is very likely to be used as an ingredient. So that may skew the original assumption of the OP.
I’ll say melon in general. Melon jam, melon milkshakes, melon cake or bread? There are some melon salads but berries are probably used more and are also capable of being in almost every other dessert.
Celery is used in a ton of recipes. Pretty much any Cajun/Creole dish is going to include celery; it’s one third of the “holy trinity” of Cajun food (celery, onions, and peppers) used as an aromatic base. Not to mention tons of soups. Chopped up in tuna salad, chicken salad, etc.
I am going to nominate lettuce, although that one may depend on what you consider to be a “recipe”. Lettuce is pretty much never eaten cooked; we mostly eat it in salads and sandwiches. Is “Place bacon, lettuce, and tomato between two slices of bread” a recipe? Is “Toss romaine lettuce and croutons with Caesar dressing” a recipe? Does telling the Subway Sandwich Artist that you want lettuce on your Cold Cut Combo count as using it in a recipe?
I’d agree that all the melons are very infrequently consumed in a non-fresh non-processed form. Berries and other fruits are often made into jams, or dried, canned, put in pies, and sauced. Melons, not so much. I’d put melons ahead of bananas in that regard, you put bananas in smoothies, on pancakes, and in breads/muffins.