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 | | Name: | banana | | Plural names: | bananas |
| Description: | | Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colours; most cultivars are yellow when ripe but some are red. The ripe fruit is easily peeled and eaten raw or cooked. Depending upon cultivar and ripeness, the flesh can be starchy to sweet, and firm to mushy. Unripe or 'green' plantains and bananas are used in cooking and are the staple starch of some tropical populations.
While the original bananas contained rather large seeds, seedless and triploid cultivars have been selected for human consumption. These are propagated asexually from offshoots of the plant. The plant is allowed to produce 2 shoots at a time—a larger one for fruiting immediately and a smaller 'sucker' or 'follower' that will produce fruit in 6–8 months time. The life of a banana plantation is 25 years or longer, during which time the individual stools or planting sites may move slightly from their original positions as lateral rhizome formation dictates. Latin Americans sometimes comment that the plants are "walking" over time. A stem of bananas can weigh from 30–50 kg, and they are usually carried on the shoulder.
The commercial sweet varieties most commonly eaten in temperate countries (species Musa acuminata or the hybrid Musa x paradisiaca, a cultigen) are imported in large quantities from the tropics, where they are popular in part because they are available fresh year-round. In global commerce, by far the most important of these banana cultivars is 'Cavendish', which accounts for the vast bulk of bananas exported outside of the tropics.
It is common for fruit exports to be dominated by a single or very few cultivars (another example is the mango cultivar 'Tommy Atkins'). As in this case, the most important properties making 'Cavendish' important are related to transport and shelf life rather than taste; major commercial cultivars are rarely as sweet or as good flavour as many less widespread cultivars. This is also related to the fact that export bananas are picked green, and then ripened in ripening rooms when they arrive in their county of destination. These are special rooms made air-tight and filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening.
Bananas are normally shipped out to markets when they are still partially green, however, a banana is considered ripe and ready for eating when it is fully yellow, and speckled with small brown spots. Sometimes bananas will bypass the ripening room, and show up at the market still fully green; these almost never ripen into quality fruit, if they ripen at all.
The flavour and texture of many kinds of bananas are affected by the temperature at which they ripen. Bananas spoil and turn grey at low temperatures and are only refrigerated down to 13.5°C during transportation.
Banana chips are a snack produced from dehydrated banana slices. Dried bananas have a dark brown colour and a typical intense banana taste. Bananas have also been used in the making of jam. However unlike other fruits, bananas have historically been difficult to extract juice from because when compressed a banana simply turns to pulp.
In addition to the fruits, the flower of the banana plant (also known as banana blossom or banana heart) is used in Southeast Asian, Bengali and Kerala (India) cooking, either served raw with dips or cooked in soups and curries. The tender core of the banana plant's trunk is also used, notably in Burmese, Bengali and Kerala cooking.
Banana leaves, large, flexible, and waterproof, are used as umbrellas and to wrap food for cooking. Chinese zongzi and Central American tamales are sometimes steamed in banana leaves, and the Hawaiian imu is often lined with them. In South India, the leaves are used as a natural plate to serve food. Once eaten, the leaf is thrown away for cattle consumption, an eco-friendly practice. The practice has regained popularity due to the hygiene it offers and the fact that it saves on water and detergents that would normally have been used to clean a plate. Moreover, hot food served in a tender banana leaf manifests a distinct banana flavour that is also said to have nutritional benefits.
Seeded bananas (Musa balbisiana) considered to be one of the forerunners of the common domesticated banana, are sold in markets in Indonesia. |
| Contributed by: guido on Friday, January 06. 2006 at 08:36:02 |
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