|
|
|
| Banana Storage and Selection |
|
Bananas with black skin are at their sweetest and best for cooking
Banana Selection
As you've probably noticed in the marketplace, bananas are picked and shipped green. They are the only fruit that actually develop better color, texture, aroma, and sweetness when ripened after harvest. They ripen quickly after being harvested and will also hasten ripening of other fruits in their vicinity. It's the tiny seeds within the fruit that release a ripening hormone, a mixture of ethylene gas and carbon dioxide.
When selecting bananas, think about your usage time frame. You may wish to choose some already ripe for immediate use and some still slightly but not overly green to ripen for later use. Select bananas that are bright in color, full and plump, avoiding those with bruises. A dull, gray color indicates they have been chilled or overheated during storage.
Ripe bananas show no trace of green skin. |
Banana equivalents
• 1 pound bananas = 3 medium bananas
• 1 pound bananas = 4 small bananas
• 1 pound bananas = 2 to 2-1/2 cups sliced
• 1 pound bananas = 1-1/3 cups mashed
• 1 pound dried bananas = 4-1/2 cups slices
• 1 medium banana = 2/3 cup sliced bananas
• 2 medium bananas = 1 cup diced bananas
• 3 medium bananas = 1 cup mashed bananas
• 2 medium bananas = 1/2 to 1 teaspoon banana extract
|
Fullest flavor is derived from bananas that begin to develop tiny dark specks. If you are unable to easily break the stem to peel the banana, it is not yet ripe. If the skin is difficult to separate from the fruit, it is most likely too starchy and bitter to eat without cooking and could cause digestional distress and/or constipation if eaten raw.
You can speed up the ripening process by placing the bananas in an open paper bag on the counter. Bananas are best stored on the counter, away from direct heat and sunlight.
Banana Storage
Bananas can be refrigerated for several days to stunt ripening. Although the skins of refrigerated bananas will turn brown, the fruit itself will be fine. Allow the refrigerated fruit to come to room temperature before consuming for full flavor.
Peeled bananas should be eaten immediately lest they discolor due to exposure to the air. Bananas can be frozen whole, but don't expect the same texture when thawed. Freeze them in their skin and save for later use in sauces, baked goods, or blended drinks.
Add one tablespoon of citrus or pineapple juice to one cup of mashed bananas and freeze in a sealed container up to three months.
|
| Banana Facts and Information |
Banana Factoids
If you're like most people, you probably don't give a second thought to the sweet banana, one of the few fruits available year-round. If you're ever stranded on a desert island, just hope and pray it contains a banana tree bearing the world's most perfect fruit. Although it has a long pedigree, the sweet yellow banana is a mutant strain which developed from original red and green cooking bananas most often called plantains. Although primarily eaten out of hand or in desserts, sweet bananas can also be used as an accent in savory dishes.
Bananas are herbs
Although referred to as banana trees, they are not trees at all but a perennial herb. Its trunk is not a true one, but many leaves tightly wrapped around a single stem which emerges at the top as the fruit-bearing flower stalk.
The fruit fingers grow in clumps known as hands, since they resemble a hand with fingers. The entire stalk, known as a bunch, takes up to a year for the fruit to ripen enough to be harvested. The original stem dies after producing fruit, but sideshoots rise from the same underground corm to produce a new plant to be harvested the following year. The fruit itself is sterile, unable to produce a plant from the miniscule dark seeds within.
Some banana trees continue producing up to one hundred years, although most banana plantations renew their stock every ten to twenty-five years.
The tree itself also has uses. The leaves are used as wrappers to steam foods in Latin, Caribbean, and Asian cultures. The banana flower is also edible, but if you eat the flower, you obviously won't get any fruit.
The banana is a distant cousin to ginger, turmeric, and cardamom, and is botanically classified as a berry.
There are over four hundred varieties of bananas with the yellow Cavendish being the most favored in America. Americans consume an annual average of twenty-five pounds of bananas per person. Bananas are the world's best-selling fruit, outranking the apple and orange. |
|
|
|
