MetaChat - Bananas

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04 November 2009

Bananas I would like to eat more bananas, because they are good and good for you. The problem is, I don't like bananas that much.→[More:]Oh, I enjoy them when I eat them, but about one a week at the most is all I can take (I've never understood people who could eat a banana every single day for weeks or months on end). So I rarely buy bananas, because they just sit around going bad and it's such a waste.

However! I was pleased to find that there is a street vendor on my work block that sells loose bananas. 35 cents a banana. I think that is a fair price to pay for a banana plus the convenience of having a banana whenever I want it without having to keep bananas in my house.

Please talk to me about bananas.

post by: ThePinkSuperhero at: 16:26 | 33 comments

You echo my thoughts on bananas. Mom is usually good to give me a banana. Sometimes I buy a couple at the grocery stores. The only street vendors we have here sell hot dogs.

I don't like 'nana Pudding, that is almost a sin here in the South.

posted by Marxchivist 04 November | 16:31

I love bananas. I happily eat a banana every day. Or I did. Until in an effort to stick to my budget I stopped going to the grocery store as a recreational activity. That was wise cause I spend about a third what I used to at the grocery store each month. But I miss the bananas.

posted by crush-onastick 04 November | 16:38

I am with you, TPS. I'm not a huge banana fan. I have found that yogurt and berries mask the taste pretty well, however, when I use bananas in smoothies. Bananas add body to the smoothie and only a little bit of taste, in my experience. So you can still reap the health benefits without actually tasting the banana.

How do you feel about banana bread?

posted by Luminous Phenomena 04 November | 16:41

I like bananas but I don't eat them as much as I used to as it causes some conflict around the house. My SO only likes rather green semi-crunchy bananas and thinks my normally-ripe bananas smell like garbage. Also, she thinks bananas cause our youngest (who likes bananas) to have poorer bladder control. So we don't have them around much.

Can't help with not liking them though. I imagine doing much of anything with them cooking-wise would make them less healthy. But then, I'm not sure they're really any healthier than any other fresh fruit.

posted by DarkForest 04 November | 16:43

I love bananas (so tasty! especially when they have lots of brown spots), but don't buy 'em, because they're not grown around here an I try to buy local.

Tell me what you know about the United Fruit Company.

posted by aniola 04 November | 16:44

I hate bananas. I've tried and the smell of them makes me almost gag. (Tuna does the same thing, ugh.)

I think it all comes back to when I got sick from some Chinese food when I was wee and my mother forced bananas down my throat because she thought I was deficient in potassium. Bananas are no fun coming back up.

posted by sperose 04 November | 16:49

I lived in India several years ago, and the bananas there spoiled me for Western bananas. Indian bananas are green when ripe, small, and very sweet and smooth. They're like delicious banana custard. Western bananas are huge, mealy, and tasteless. I simply refused to eat them except in banana bread until very recently.

I find that I can eat half a banana (must have brown spots) if I accompany it with walnut halves. I can also eat a bit in yogurt.

posted by Specklet 04 November | 16:52

How do you feel about banana bread?

Never really thought about it. Doesn't most banana bread have other stuff in it, like nuts? I don't like bread with lots of weird stuff in it.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 04 November | 16:53

I do not like bananas, except on the rare occasion when I want a banana. When I do buy a banana, I am usually buying a banana. Aniola points out another thing: I kinda forgot about bananas because I don't see them at the farmers' market.

I spent a lot of retail years eating bananas, because it's a tidy little fruit to eat in a shop: it's quiet, it's wrapped up, it's not juicy, and if you have to leave it half-eaten for a while, it doesn't turn brown.

I do like banana bread. Indeed, there's a ripe blackened banana in the freezer right now; I should probably pick up another couple and let them go ripe so I can make some banana bread soon. I do like it loaded with nuts or other crunchy/chewy/sweet bits in it, but you can certainly make it without. You end up with a moist sweet loaf of yummy without all the added bits.

posted by Elsa 04 November | 17:04

I love bananas, and love 'em really ripe. They are delicious. However, my leaning-toward-locavorism has meant that I have more trouble enjoying them because (at least the grocery store kind) they are so resource intensive and have a really lousy environmental and social impact where they're grown. But still, they're awesome.

In winter, my favorite breakfast is something I've been eating since I was a leetle girl in Texas: toast with peanut butter & banana (mashed together). Boy Howdy is that good. Especially on buttered toast. My grandmother used to cut each bread slice into 9 little squares for me, so I could get PB&B on every bite, and sometimes, infantilishly, I still do that.

posted by Miko 04 November | 17:05

Doesn't most banana bread have other stuff in it, like nuts?

Doesn't need to. The kind my mother made never did.

Tell me what you know about the United Fruit Company.

I think they covered that in this recent book.

Bananas are no fun coming back up.

But then, what is?

posted by DarkForest 04 November | 17:07

I mash them and add them to my morning oatmeal.

posted by jason's_planet 04 November | 17:13

Oh, oh, I remember the way I do like bananas: cooked.

Oh, yes.

In a non-stick pan, heat a tiny piece of butter until it bubbles. Into the butter, put a firm, not-quite-ripe banana, halved lengthwise. Sear it just a minute or two; toss in a tiny sprinkle of sugar, splash with liquor or lemon juice. Cook just another couple of minutes.

Serve alone, with whipped cream, or with ice cream. Holy cow, is that good.

posted by Elsa 04 November | 17:23

I enjoy eating green bananas now and then, but ripe bananas have an icky flavor and texture. Ripe ones are great in smoothies, 'specially since I like mine thick.

Also, I went with my aunt to Costco over the weekend and picked up a bag of bananas. 3lbs for 1.30 or sumthin'. But they're simultaneously green and spotted brown. Grrr.

posted by moonshine 04 November | 18:20

toss in a tiny sprinkle of sugar

Especially brown sugar.

posted by Miko 04 November | 18:53

Oh, hell yes. Demerara sugar is good, too.

posted by Elsa 04 November | 18:58

Banananananas keep me from being dehydrated after exercises. Non-organic ones taste like chalk; I prefer the organic ones.

The Korean word for babanananas is the English word is the Spanish word. Bananasnasnasnanas, the world word for food to keep you regular.

posted by buzzman 04 November | 19:24

banana smoothies. milk, bananas, blender.

posted by qvantamon 04 November | 19:30

I can never finish a banana. I get halfway and think "I don't want the rest of this". So, yes, chop it up, make it into a paste, throw it into things, and an excellent smoothie base.

posted by The Whelk 04 November | 20:15

I love bananas. I like them in pancakes, in cereal, or just plain. But everyone else in my family hates them. So, in practice, I rarely have them.

posted by Obscure Reference 04 November | 20:34

Bananas are almost the only food in the world that I don't like. I just can't deal with the texture and I'm not really into the flavor either.

posted by octothorpe 04 November | 20:40

I am not a fan of bananas. They squish and get mealy and the skin makes the garbage bin go rank twice as fast.

posted by casarkos 04 November | 21:14

Banana bread is more-or-less basic muffin with banana pulp. You can give it more oomph with cinnamon and nutmeg, though. I don't put nuts in mine.

One thing you can do, if you have a blow torch, is peel it, split it down the middle, sprinkle on a good layer of sugar and torch the sugar until it carmelizes and gets crunchy.

Another is Bananas Foster, for which there is a microwave version. I prefer it with grade B maple syrup instead of brown sugar.

I usually have mine with cereal, but don't underestimate the deliciousness of banana pieces with a little bit of heavy cream.

posted by plinth 04 November | 22:17

I found recently that bananas actually make a very good tropical fruit chutney. (I can get the recipe from my mother if anyone's interested.) Slopped lavishly over a sandwich consisting of a slab of honey-smoked leg ham on thick fresh rye bread smeared with an indecent amount of butter, it's totally ace.

Or you can make my favourite toasted sandwich in all the world - grilled chicken, swiss cheese and banana, with a bit of garlic rubbed on the bread and plenty of black pepper over the lot. Whack that sucker in a pannini press and devour.

posted by ninazer0 04 November | 22:26

Or, easiest dessert in the world. Take your banana, put a slit down one side - through the peel and all. Stuff good chocolate into split, drizzle with rum, throw on BBQ until chocolate melts, sprinkle with macadamia nuts and cream and devour. Throw skin in garbage. Wipe mouth with hand.

posted by ninazer0 04 November | 22:35

I forgot about bananas and sour cream!

posted by Obscure Reference 04 November | 22:47

ninazer0's recupe is also a super awesome campfire treat for when you're camping. You can make it customizable - wrap the banana in tinfoil, then give people a buffet of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, different kinds of nuts, syrups, marshmallows, pineapple chunks, maraschino cherries, etc. Let people pile up their sliced banana with toppings, then wrap up the foil and nudge into the coals for a few minutes. Open up, squirt with canned whipped cream, and feel your knees buckle.

posted by Miko 04 November | 23:29

I like bananas, and banana bread with no nuts but with chocolate chips and cinnamon sugar on top.

My boss at my previous job said she didn't trust bananas "because you never know what's going to be underneath the peel"....... ummm, a banana?

But I despise all artificial banana flavor, so if that is what you haters taste when you eat real banana, I understand completely.

posted by rmless2 05 November | 00:05

I like fresh bananas that are only slightly freckled...but if I'm eating them in a place run by men who were raised to think women are nothing more then their vulvas I separate them into their natural thirds, then eat.

posted by brujita 05 November | 00:30

You can have some fun with bananas, particularly if they belong to someone else.

Get a long pin or needle, punch it through the skin and sweep it from one side to the other to "slice" the banana. Carefully repeat down the length of the banana. Remove pin, replace banana as you found it.

Person comes along to enjoy their banana, goes to peel it and is dumbfounded to find that it falls into neat pieces.

Yeah, I don't get out very often. Why do you ask?

posted by ninazer0 05 November | 02:51

I'm adopting "it's totally ace" as my new catch phrase.

posted by Specklet 05 November | 06:38

My kids recently introduced me to the 'chocolate-in-banana-in-fire' thing. I didn't like it, but I do love me some banana. As long as they are perfectly, precisely ripe - completely yellow, but with not a single brown spot.

Not sure what sort of bananas you are all getting - we have basically two varieties available - lady fingers and cavendish. The lady fingers (to me) taste very 'floury', but the cavendish are divine.

Banana smoothies are lovely, as long as they are cold - as soon as the chill leaves the smoothie, it becomes vomit-inducing to me.

What, me, fussy?

posted by dg 06 November | 08:31

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by essexjan 06 November | 17:27

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