Food

Food Information

Fruit

Tropical

BANANAS

The wild banana, believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, is nowcultivated in all the tropical areas of the world that have ideal conditions:warmth (never below 50 F), high humidity, ample and steady rainfall, andloose, well-drained soil. The areas that best meet these requirements arefound in Central America. The top banana-producing countries of the worldare Costa Rica, Honduras, Ecuador, and Panama. Except for a very small cropgrown in Hawaii, bananas are not grown commercially in the United States.

The banana is a most unusual fruit, akin to no other. It is actually theberry of a giant, bee like herb. It grows on stalks that bear about sevento twelve hands of bananas. Each hand is made up of about twelve to fourteenbananas. A bunch, consisting of seven to twelve hands and up to a coupleof hundred bananas, can weigh from fifty to one hundred pounds.

Unless you were born before the mid-1950s, you have probably never seena bunch of bananas, unless you have visited the growing areas. Prior to1964, bunches of bananas were a common sight in all retail markets. Theywere hung from the ceiling and the bananas were usually cut to order fromthe stalk at the time of purchase. These bunches were carried, one at atime, on the backs of laborers, into the holds of the banana boats in LatinAmerica. When they reached port in the United States, they were unloadedin the same tedious fashion, one bunch at a time, on the backs of laborers,down the gangplanks and onto trucks waiting on the piers. A hundred yearsago the same methods of loading and unloading were used, but instead ofsteam ships and trucks, the bunches were loaded onto sailing vessels andhorse-drawn wagons.

In 1964 this crude, back-breaking, time-consuming method was scuttled. Instead,the hands of bananas were cut from the stalks right after harvest and packedin casket-shaped forty-pound boxes. These boxes were trucked to the piers,stacked on pallets, and lowered into the holds of the ships by mechanicalcranes. Upon arrival at their destination, the ships were unloaded in similarfashion and the boxes of fruit were loaded onto trucks. Loading and unloadingthe banana boats under the old method used to take several days at eachend. Today the ships are loaded and unloaded in a matter of several hours.

Bananas are available twelve months of the year. The supply is both ampleand steady regardless of month, season, or weather, and prices are verystable and seldom fluctuate. Other fresh fruits that are far less difficultto grow and are produced much closer to home, usually sell for more thantwice the price of bananas. But thanks to oversupply and fierce competitionby the growing nations, bananas are nearly always the least costly itemat the fruit stand.

Bananas are harvested while they are grass-green. (A stalk-ripened bananawon't taste nearly as good as the ones you can buy in your neighborhoodmarkets. A banana allowed to ripen prior to harvest is very soft, oily,and fragile.) When they reach port in North America, they are still grass-greenand as hard as a rock. They are ripened, without being removed from thebanana boxes, in sealed, temperature-controlled areas called banana rooms.These rooms are equipped to supply the required warmth and humidity to ripenthe fruit properly. The bananas are exposed to a harmless ethylene gas,similar to the gas naturally exuded by all bananas, that accelerates theripening process.

When the bananas are exposed to the proper warmth, humidity, and gas, theygradually change in color. They go from grass-green to light green to lightyellow to golden-yellow. The light green or light yellow are the ideal colorsto look for when purchasing bananas at the produce counter. After you takethem home, the bananas will continue to ripen. Once they are golden-yellow,they will fleck with brown spots that look like freckles. The freckles willcontinue to grow in size, and eventually all the yellow color will havedisappeared, leaving a totally brown-skinned banana. At each stage of thecolor change, the inner flesh of the banana will get softer and sweeteras the fruit ripens.

The trick to getting the most value and the least loss when purchasing bananasis to choose those that are light green or light yellow. In the producetrade this coloring is called on the turn. If you buy golden-yellow fruitthat is ready to eat, you may have trouble. Golden bananas are quite fragileand often can't stand the rigors of a self-service type of marketing. Chancesare that prior to your arrival at the produce counter, other overzealousshoppers will have squeezed or bruised the fruit while making their selection.That part of the banana that has not been handled gently or has been bruisedwill discolor and turn black and will have to be discarded.

While bananas don't like cold weather, neither do they like it very hot.Once the temperature goes into the nineties, they tend to get very softand seem to melt. Buying grass-green bananas is a big mistake, yet thereis a tendency on the part of the consumer to buy them dark green in theheat of the summer. Very often if the bananas are too green, they will notcolor up or ripen no matter how warm the weather.

In the winter months, very often the bananas are green because they havebeen chilled. Chilled bananas never turn yellow but instead turn a dullgreenish gray. They stay very hard and eventually wind up in the garbagecan. Never buy jade green bananas.

Nearly all bananas offered for sale in most areas are the everyday yellow-skinnedfruit, though there are also some red-skinned bananas that occasionallyshow up in some of the more exclusive higher-priced fruit shops. These coral-skinnedbananas are shorter and plumper than the yellow-skinned variety. They havea softer texture and are slightly sweeter than the yellow bananas. However,they aren't worth the premium price unless you want to use them for decorativepurposes. There is also a miniature variety called the Lady Finger banana.They have no special value other than their oddity. They are seldom if everoffered commercially.

PLANTAINS

A market with a fair amount of Latin American trade will carry fruit thatlooks like unattractive, oversized bananas, called plantains. Sometimescalled the potato of the tropics, they are staple food products in all ofthe world's lush, tropical areas. This giant cousin to the banana is fartoo starchy to eat raw, but is very flavorful and smooth when cooked inany manner you would cook an Irish potato: boiled, mashed, baked, or fried.Thin slices of fried plantain are as tasty as our potato chips but far morenutritious.

Select light green or light yellow bananas and buy only as many as you willuse in two or three days. They are especially perishable in the summertimebecause they ripen so quickly in the heat. The industry now advises thatripe bananas may be refrigerated for a few days and that though the skinswill turn black, the banana itself will be fine. I belong to the old school.There used to be a jingle, sung by a young lady named Chiquita Banana, thatadvised never to put bananas in the refrigerator.

WHEN TO BUY: Available year-round
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Clear-skinned, not bruised fruit that is light green orlight yellow (jade green or golden yellow fruit should be avoided)
HOW TO STORE: Never refrigerate bananas

Deamer 5/97