Go Bananas!

For all my friends living in non-tropical countries, here's a riddle. What's red, thick and shiny and looks like a famous rock-star's lips ? Your clue is in the photo above.
Ummmm, no-o-o........ actually that's the bract of a banana flower. If you did guess right, come on over and I'll share some of my banana wine with you.

That's how the bract opens up, revealing one line of white/cream flowers underneath each one. Incidentally, these flowers in the photo above, are male. The female ones which develop into the fruit are found higher up the stalk.



When I was a child, we used to sip up the sweet nectar found in the flowers. There's such a tiny drop of it that it hardly seems worth the effort but children know differently, dont they? And, so it seems do bees and other nectar-loving creatures, even these huge wasps in the photo above.
I saw a sunbird sipping on one the other day but it was too precious a moment to disturb by going for a camera.

Who can fault such excellent packaging? Each bract tightly fitted over the flowers until its moment arrives to unfurl. The banana flower dangles like a pendant at the end of a long stalk. The fruit is found growing higher up on the stalk and after the last 'hand' or tier of bananas have formed on the bunch, farmers cut off the dangling flower and stalk. This is meant to conserve all the nutrients into developing the fruit instead of getting wasted on the now-useless flower.

Useless? No way! That flower would soon find its way to the kitchen and be transformed into a very tasty vegetable dish. Hmm, only magic or a very determined housewife could transform a flower into a vegetable!

There was just no way I could cut this one off... I couldnt reach it even if I stood on a stool! Not all my banana plants are so tall though. This is just one of my shooting stars!


Incidentally, if you're wondering why the leaf behind the flower in the photo above is all slit and tattered, blame it on the wind. Otherwise, the leaf is large and is often used at traditional meals as a plate.

Yes, you read that right. The clean leaf is cut into more manageable sizes, washed and the food is served on it. At the end of the meal, it is thrown away onto the rubbish heap to decompose and add to the fertility of the soil.

Simple! No washing dishes, or drying them, or worrying over chipping, or even silly things like matching crockery!
I found a photo in Kitchen Mishmash which is quite descriptive. Take a look!

Oh, and the leaf is also used to grill fish. The prepared fish is wrapped in banana leaf and cooked. The charred banana leaf gives such a delicious flavour to the fish that just can not be replicated without it.

I love seeing the leaf unfurling from the tight roll into a funnel and then into a broad expanse.



We cut the banana bunch when the sides of the bananas start smoothening out. When it is raw, there are thin rib-like lines running down the sides of the banana. By the time it starts ripening, this rounds out and the ribs disappear. That's when you know that it's time to cut it down. Wait too long and either the bats and crows get the fruits. Or, by the time you do cut it, the fruits start stripping off the bunch and you're left with a mess!

The banana plant will yield fruit only once so instead of cutting the bunch down, we cut the whole plant at the base . The bunch of fruit is carried off and the pseudostem is slit open to get at the core. This is again used to make curries. Very messy, and murder on the hands, but tasty in its own way.

In almost all Indian homes, a sweet, ripe banana or plantain often rounds out the heavy, spicy meals. It is excellent for digestion and for a sweet tooth too. And it looks so vibrantly colourful too.

I've got about 50 banana plants of different varieties growing in my garden. Sometimes 7-8 of them are harvested within days of each other and I go berserk trying to dispose of them. How much can one family eat?

Bunches are pressed into the hands of friends, relatives, workers and anyone who happens to visit. Recipe books are desperately consulted and tried-and-true recipes surface. Banana cakes, desserts and tea-time snacks are my stand-bys in this time of desperation. Next in line is my banana wine, potent enough to have me babbling all my secrets to anyone who'll listen. Jams and syrups are possibilities but I've never ventured there yet.

If you have a few extra bananas getting over-ripe, you may want to visit this site or this . Between them, they've got about 5000 ideas for you to decide what to do with them!