My wife always buys the greenest bananas she can find at the store, which then ripen over time. We live in the mid-western US, if that makes a difference.
They usually have some yellow on them, but the last set she bought were completely green. We’ve had them for 4 days or so, and they aren’t ripening at all.
So, the obvious question is “Why?”
They aren’t producing any ethylene. Maybe picked way too soon. They may have been frozen in storage. Try putting them in the sun or in a bag with some other ripening fruit. Or maybe they’re plantains.
Do they have a grayish tinge to them? If they do they were chilled at some point along they way and you can toss them, they’ll never ripen*. If they were actually frozen, it’ll be pretty pronounced. But it can mean something as simple as them getting left in a cooler for a few hours or being transported on a reefer truck without being somewhat protected.
They may also not have been gassed, in which case they’ll still ripen, it’s just going to take much longer. You can put them in a paper bag (plastic can work too) add something that offgasses, like a tomato, if you have one, to speed it up and see what happens.
*You can use this to your advantage as well. Buy them at whatever stage you want, doesn’t matter. When they get to the point that you like to eat them at, stick them in the fridge. Once they get ugly looking, they’ll never ripen again and it’ll buy you some time to eat them without them over ripening. You can, at that point, take them back out of the fridge as well.
I’ve recently had problems with green bananas. They sat on my counter two days and didn’t ripen. Still green. Overnight they got too ripe.
Usually there’s a day or two in between green and too ripe.
This happened to me too. I left them sitting there for twice as long and the color never changed, but when I finally peeled one it had the texture and taste of an overripe banana. Perhaps they do ripen normally and it’s simply the skin that doesn’t indicate this?
Thanks for the suggestions.
We’ll try sun, and putting them in bed with something that is ripening.
^TMI