[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends]
Can these African superbananas be bought anywhere in the West, specifically in the UK? I’m intrigued, I want to try some.
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I wish.
Perhaps specialty fruit markets. Everything I know about bananas is in that article.
Of course, they mentioned Belgium, perhaps a quick trip through the chunnel is called for?
Very yummy bananas to try, from south east Asia, called locally, elephant toes. They are small and short and stubby but very yummy. I sometime see them at the market and always buy them!
And what about the wonder that is the banana plant itself?
It produces bananas only once. How odd. Then it shoots up another plant from the same root right beside the old one and starts all over again, very curious. Oh, and elephants love those banana plants even without the fruit attached.
Plus you failed to mention all the take out food in places like SE Asia which is served in a banana leaf. The all natural, no waste, disposable food container. Fold it right and nothing leaks out.
And, of course, there are all those dishes that are cooked in banana leaves!
And, last but not least, if you’re caught in an unexpected monsoon you can always grab a banana leaf as a makeshift umbrella.
Bestest fruit indeed!
[QUOTE=elbows]
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It produces bananas only once. How odd. Then it shoots up another plant from the same root right beside the old one and starts all over again, very curious. Oh, and elephants love those banana plants even without the fruit attached.
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It wouldn’t be particularly odd if the banana plant were a lot smaller. It’s a perennial herb - the world’s largest herbaceous plant. Often referred to as a “tree” because of its size, and because it grows tightly rolled leaves that look like a trunk.
[QUOTE=rbroome]
My favorite banana story is the Potassium. Mildly radioactive. So containers of bananas are supposedly always setting off the radiation detectors set up around ports and cities. Kind of sad that our homeland security setup can’t tell the difference between a bunch of bananas and a nuclear weapon.
Also, the anemic yellow banana popular in the US is a passing and soon to be extinct fad. Turns out that variety of banana is a clone. It was developed in the 40s in response to a fungus that essentially destroyed the then popular variety of banana. It is immune to that fungus but as always happens fungus and diseases evolved. Unfortunately being a clone there is no way to improve the banana as the US knows it. Now almost half the cost of growing one goes to chemicals needed to keep it alive long enough to be harvested. Eventually the fungus is going to win. And according to real banana people, it can’t happen fast enough. Bananas, 100s of varieties, are a staple in tropical East Africa. The commercial yellow banana is so bad compared to local varieties that even if they could afford to grow them, no one would stoop so low. The Western banana industry is caught in a bind. If they try to introduce new varieties of bananas to the Western market, demand for the old ones will go down while costs continue to rise. Bad for business. But they have to do something-one day a new fungus will wipe the industry out overnight and the consumers will not be taught any alternatives. So, rather than being proactive, the industry keeps hoping the inevitable holds off for one more quarter.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/banana.html
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So if we can go to the moon, why can’t we synthesize bananas so we don’t have to go buy them every few days and then throw some of them away or eat the dark lumps?
BTW, I one got one that had a bone in it, i.e., a hard spine along the length of its insides. Shoulda saved it.