How Bananas Are Eaten in Their Native Home
By George F. Enoch
ON page thirteen of the issue of the REVIEW AND HERALD of January 12 is an article concerning bananas that should not pass unnoticed. It is true that the writer of the article failed to tell just what part of the world he referred to as the native country of the banana, but this very generality calls for a word of protest, at least from that portion of the world from which America draws a large banana supply. The writer of these lines has dwelt for seven years in a banana country. All this time he has had intimate associations with all classes of people, passing in and out of their homes on the friendliest terms, having every opportunity to observe their habits and customs. He has lived in three banana-producing islands, and visited many others. Over three years his home was in Port Antonio, Jamaica, a port from which at certain seasons over three hundred thousand bunches each week are shipped to the States, and he can candidly say that he can not call to mind a single native of the West Indies who would touch a banana that had reached the condition which is spoken of in that article. As soon as a banana skin is discolored, and the pulp is soft, it is considered by natives of this portion of the tropics as fit only for the garbage box, or the pigsty, and not for a place in the human stomach. In fact, there is a tendency here to eat bananas much harder than in the States. It appears to us here that for a Northerner to insist that a banana is not ripe until it is soft is equivalent to a West Indian arguing that an apple is not ripe until it is rotten. This suggests another idea that was current in the North, and that is that the banana would be much improved if it were only possible to let it ripen on the trees. The writer had fancied how much he should enjoy them when he had the opportunity of letting them ripen in that manner. Alas, his idol is shattered! A native brother kindly accommodated him, and allowed a bunch to stand on the stalk until the skin was yellow, when he at once lost his desire for bananas ripened on a tree. The reason was this: After the banana is full (a local expression, meaning “fully developed”), its further continuance on the stalk only allows it to take on a surplus of water, which causes it to swell until the skin bursts, and the result is a big, overgrown banana, which has lost most of its sweetness and flavor, and is flat and insipid in taste. The bananas that are sent from the West Indies to the United States are full before they are cut. The skin is yet green, but a few days will remedy that, and by the time the skin has become thoroughly yellow, you have a toothsome and delicate fruit that is healthful and palatable, and that can not be excelled in our mind anywhere in the world. Let us not allow a fear of indigestion to hinder us from eating it before it has gone a long way on the road to decomposition. It might be added that Americans have taught many West Indians to eat ripe bananas. Until the advent of the fruit companies, which have encouraged the culture of bananas, ripe bananas were scarcely used. But they have been eaten green from the most ancient times. In many a humble and respectable home in Jamaica you will have set before you for dinner a savory dish of green bananas boiled like a vegetable. The writer has enjoyed many such a meal, and hopes to be spared to enjoy still others. The manufacture of flour is another quite general use to which bananas are put in the countries where they are native. They are put in the sun to dry, and then ground with mortar and pestle to a flour resembling in appearance wheat flour, and used in much the same way. Many delicious dishes can be made therefrom. But as regards ripe bananas, it is the custom in the West Indies to cut the bananas when “full,” but yet green in color, and hang them in the shade to dry until the skin becomes yellow.