I like bananas, I respect bananas, I find bananas interesting, but I don't love bananas.

My lady does. Love them, that is. I reserve love for my lady and my dog, and since they eat them every day, so do I. But eating a fresh banana every day has gotten sort of boring. That's why I have collected 104 recipes for bananas. That's certainly not all the banana recipes in the world, but if I can accumulate three hundred and sixty five recipes (this is where your recipe can help), having a banana everyday won't be so hard to swallow.

To show my interest in bananas, I researched their nutritional value, as compared to apples. A banana has less water, fifty percent more food energy, four times the protein, half the fat, twice the carbohydrate, almost three times the phosphorus, nearly five times the Vitamin A and iron, at least twice the other vitamins and minerals as an apple. That's how I got my respect for bananas.

Bananas can be used in an amazing variety of dishes: as relishes; as a vegetable with pork, lamb chops, bacon, sausage, corned beef, beefsteak; as a stuffing for goose, duck, turkey, or chicken; as sauces, spreads, jellies, jams; frosting and candies; filling for pies, cakes, tarts, doughnuts and turnovers; as custard, pudding, ice creams and parfait; in soups, stews, casseroles, souffles, ragout, and croquettes; they can be fried, par boiled, broiled, and baked; made into flour for breads; eaten raw and as fresh fruit in salads.

So you see there's little you can't do with a banana. My lady even collects those little stickers that come on bananas, and uses the peels in the compost heap. You can buy BANANA POSTERS and BOOKS here. I don't know why my dog likes bananas.

Here are some of the more interesting recipes for bananas I have found:

	BANANA Doughnuts		BANANA Toast		BANANA Bread		BANANA Pancakes
	BANANA Relish		BANANA Stuffing		BANANA cutlets		BANANA Dumplings
	BANANA Pie		BANANA Chutney		BANANA and Peanut Butter Sandwich		Rhubarb and BANANA Fool
	and, of course, Cream of BANANA Soup

Oh Lordy, there's MORE recipes here (#14–#104), and even more on the Internet! (#105–#208) If you need Ounce to Milliliter conversions

Facts about Bananas

Bananas aren't grown on trees. They're part of the lily family, a cousin of the orchid, nothing but a very yellow and plump member of the herb family. With stalks 25 feet high, they're the largest plant on earth without a woody stem.

They are thought to have originated in Malaysia but spread throughout Asia, India and Africa well before Columbus discovered America. Unknown in this hemisphere before then, bananas came to the New World in 1516 when Spanish missionary Friar Tomas de Berlanga brought over the first root stocks.

The word banana is African, though, a word carried to the New World by Portuguese slave traders. They knew about bananas way back in history, for Alexander the Great found the people of India eating bananas in 327 B.C. In Alexander's time, bananas were called “pala” in Athens.

North America got its first taste of the tropical fruit in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents.

Today the average American consumes about 25 pounds a year of the mellow yellow, every one of them imported from Latin America, where the climate favors the warmth-loving plants. Rich in potassium, vitamins B, A and C, bananas are not only popular but considered healthful by most of us. In fact, there are funny numbers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that a banana can cut the risk of death from strokes by as much as 40 percent in certain cases.

For more information on bananas, including free recipes, send a stamped, self addressed business-size envelope to the International Banana Association, 1101 Vermont Ave., N.W., Suite 306, Washington, D.C. 20005. Ask for the free brochure, “Banana Times.”

Most of us know that the color of a banana's skin indicates its degree of ripeness. But there's ripeness and then there's ripeness. Here's a precise guide to using bananas.

• Green -- unripened bananas, used in soups and stews.
• Yellow with green tips -- partially ripe, used for broiling, baking or frying.
• All Yellow -- ripe, eaten raw or in waffles, puddings, cakes or pies.
• Yellow with brown freckles -- full-ripe, raw or in salad, fruit cup or other dishes calling for uncooked fruit.
• All Brown -- over ripe, if flesh is firm, still in prime eating condition.
• Blackened areas -- bruised fruit and should be avoided.
• Raw, unripened fruit can be irritating to your digestive system. Imperfectly ripened bananas are composed of starch; but as the natural ripening proceeds, the saccharine material is converted into dextrine and glucose. Cook the starchy, unripened fruit as you would use a potato, or let them ripen at room temperature to sweeten. When they are the color you need, bananas can be stored in the refrigerator. The skins may turn dark, but the pulp will stay at the desired ripeness.

Green Banana Pulp

To make green banana pulp, bananas must be carefully peeled so that all traces of the green outer skin are removed. If the bananas stand before cooking, cover with cold water so they will not become dark.

Cook in boiling, salted water for about a half hour. The cooking should be done slowly as with too rapid cooking the outer part of the banana becomes soft before the interior is done. Bananas must be well cooked and soft or there will be a slight green taste.

Drain, and put bananas through a potato ricer or a puree sieve.

When preparing bananas for a pie filling, proceed as rapidly as possible and use a glass, plastic or silver knife as steel blackens the bananas. The bananas may be sprinkled with a bit of lemon juice after being cut to retard browning.

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas are truly delicious and may be fried in two ways--first peel and cut lengthwise in half, dip in flour and fry a golden brown in hot oil.

For the second way--peel the bananas, cut in half, roll in flour and dip in egg and milk mixture and then roll in fine bread crumbs--fry a golden brown in smoking hot oil.

                                  FOOD VALUE
Water  Food    Pro-      Carbo-   Cal-  Phos-         Vit.A  Thia-  Ribo-   Nia-  Ascor-
       Energy  tein  Fat hydrate  cium  phorus  Iron  Value  mine   flavin  cin   bic acid
                                   Apples

84.1   64      .3   .4   14.9     6     10      .3    90     .04    .02     .02   5
                                   Bananas

74.8   99      1.2  .2   23       8     28      .6    430    .09    .06     .06   10   
Source: The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery, Wm. H. Wise & Co., Inc., New York.

(I don't even mention POTASSIUM in Bananas because it's off the charts! 370mg.)

Search Now: Let Amazon.com Search for Bananas

Buy Banana Posters at AllPosters.com

go back to Hilburn's Homepage.

See: Some Web Page Graphics,
Hilburn's Excellent Resumé on the Internet,
Go on a World Mystery Tour!,
Or, some interesting Web Page examples.
Want to read some more stories? Go back to Creative Writing