Bananas
by Ted Flagg

Few images evoke the romance of the tropics more than the broad, swaying leaves of the banana plant. These trees, or more properly herbs, provide food clothing, building materials and cooking utensils to numerous cultures around the world. Native to the Indo-Malaysian peninsula and brought to the New World by the early Spanish explorers, bananas are thought to be one of the first species of plant domesticated by man. A staple food to many peoples, they are low in sodium and rich in potassium and phosphorus. With their added benefit of providing vitamin C, bananas are consumed by Americans more than any other fresh fruit. Our modern bananas are descended from two major species with their many varieties resembling more one parent or the other. Cooking bananas bear all tile traits of MUSA BALBISIANA---a starchy and vigorous cultivar which is extremely resistant to disease. The cavendish, or eating varieties, resemble more MUSA ACUMINATA, which has a sweeter and more delicate texture. Horticulturally speaking, bananas are herbaceous perennials which grow from an underground rhizome and produce more than twenty varieties. They develop without pollination and given the proper conditions can reach blooming height in as little as six months. Depending on variety, this can be between 5 and 25 feet. Bananas require 10-15 months of frost-free conditions to bloom, but need only 90 days from flower to fruit. At blooming, an inflorescence, merges from the center of the main trunk amid the leaf bases and extends, producing a long flower stalk with rows of female flowers called "hands." The individual flowers, or "fingers," closest to the base of the stalk are the first to mature. It is when these flowers have all begun to mature that the male flower bunch appears at the end of the stalk. While very attractive to view, these pendulous male flowers do sap strength from the fruit, and so are generally removed and discarded by commercial growers. True gourmets, though, especially those in Asian countries, know that these male flowers are a delicacy when prepared properly, and waste no time in collecting them for use in a number of savory and nutritious soups and salads. Cultivation and propagation of banana, is as easy for the home gardener as it is for the commercial grower, and while they will flourish handsomely in containers in northern greenhouses, they are very difficult to bring to fruit under those conditions. This leaves the residents of tropical and sub-tropical areas well ahead of the game and much more likely to achieve success in their efforts.

The pendulous male flowers are edible and can be used for cooking.

Weatherwise, what is comfortable to humans is comfortable to bananas. They adore sunny climes but will easily tolerate fifty-degree shade, and while 80 degrees is an ideal temperature, they will cease growing completely at the outer perimeters of 53 and 100 degrees. At the 28 degree mark they will turn brown and die to the ground, but remarkably the rhizome will survive downwards of 22 degrees. Propagation is a quick and simple process. A banana plant puts up several offshoots from its underground rhizome. These are called suckers and take one of two general shapes. The water sucker is a short plant 1-foot high with very broad leaves. These are to be avoided if possible as they tend to produce very weak plants with small fruit. More desirable is the sword sucker, a 2-foot plant with narrow swordlike leaves. By inserting a shovel or machete blade vertically next to the parent plant, the sucker can be removed with part of the rhizome attached. This cutting is then kept in the shade for a day or two to allow the wound to dry completely, thus preventing the risk of fungus and rot. It is replanted at its original depth in a rich, well-drained soil with a preferred ph of 5.5-6.5. A second but more vigorous method of propagation is to excavate the rhizome and excise the "eyes" as in a potato. These are then dried and treated as in the sucker method. Bananas love water but don't appreciate standing in it. And while some experts claim that it is impossible to overfertilize a banana, a general maintenance prescription would be of a good 6-6-6 application every 2-3 months. Once the banana "fingers" lose their square shape and begin to turn more oval in cross section, they are nearing harvest time. It is when the uppermost hands begin to turn yellow that the entire stalk is cut and hung in a cool, shady location---a garage being the most convenient spot. Some people place the stalk in a large, perforated bag much like those used by dry cleaners. This allows the natural ethylene gases produced by the fruit to help in the ripening process, but unless there is the immediate need for an unusually large quantity of bananas, the stalk will ripen at a comfortable pace and provide delicious eating for some time. A word of caution though---when cutting the banana stalk, be sure to wear old clothes and gloves. The indigo sap of the banana plant has all the pastel beauty and tenacity of tattoo fluid, and takes some time and several layers of skin before it disappears completely. The parent plant that fruited should be cut to the ground at the same time the stalk of fruit is harvested. It will never produce again, though when chopped into small pieces makes a wonderful mulch and fertilizer for the patch. The suckers, which can number upwards of twenty, should be thinned down to 3 or 4 as replacements for the new parent in case it is damaged for any reason. Again, sword suckers are preferable to water suckers at the thinning stage. There are several popular varieties that can provide the amateur grower with both unique tastes and an unusual landscape. The most common are the Valery and the Gross Michel, which are found all year long at the grocery store. These are both highly-developed cultivars and are most easily distinguished by the elongated 2" neck on the Valery. The foot-long Giant Plantain, ever popular in Caribbean cuisines, is always cooked before it is eaten. Depending on its ripeness at the time of cooking, it can produce a starchy, fritter-like morsel or a succulently sweet palate cleanser that compliments any other food on the plate. For the grower with more exotic tastes, the Jamaican Red produces a dull reddish-maroon fruit with orange flesh. These short, stubby bananas occasionally appear in grocery stores and should be tried for their unique flavor and texture. Similar in shape but with more conventional coloring is the Apple Banana, or Manzana. Many experts believe that it is the sweetest and best eating of all the varieties. And finally for those growers with a heightened sense of the bizarre, there are the Hua Moa, the Double Banana and the Fe'hi. The Hua Moa, which is very prevalent in Hawaii, produces a fruit that is broad and wide as if two bananas somehow managed to share the same skin. The Double Banana has the unusual habit of throwing two to four stalks simultaneously, and the Fe'hi, native to Polynesia, blooms on a single upright stalk, steadfastly refusing to hang over despite the weight of its fruit. While these last few exotics are much more challenging to bring to bloom, they are not impossible for a grower willing to spend a little time on research. Several excellent suppliers can be found in this country who offer healthy rhizomes and detailed growing instructions to help the novice get started. But don't even dream of retirement after slicing that home-grown fruit over your corn flakes. Try preparing seafood or rice and vegetable combinations in the wide outer leaves from a mature plant. Just wash the leaves well, gift-wrap the food into a packet and truss with kitchen twine or secure with toothpicks before placing into a steamer. The natural juices will be retained helping to marry the flavors of the ingredients, and all those memories of dry meals well-seasoned with excuses will become distant ones. Give bananas a try. They will reward you with delightful fruit, useful by-products and an exotic image that never fails to draw compliments. If you'd like to try an interesting banana recipe try this one for a steamed fish and banana custard dish.

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