The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1891-03-11
A CHAPTER ON BANANAS.
A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEAT AND
BREAD IN SOUTH AMERICA.
Hills Covered With Fruit Bearing
Plants-Various Kinds of Bananas
Hints on Cooking Them

Hills Covered With Fruit-Bearing
Plants-Various Kinds of Bananas
Hints on Cooking Them.
In South America the banana is not
thought of as luxury. In fact it takes
the place of meat and bread and vege-
tables among large part of the people.
Every garden has its banana patch, just
as we have our indispensable rows of
potatoes. On the Isthmus of Panama the
cars spin past hills covered from base to
summit with the beautiful broad-leaved
plants, their great clusters of fruit hang
ing from the stems Just under the leaves.
The banana plant looks somewhat like
an immense calla-lily. Its stem is made
up Of the bases of the leaves so sheathed,
or folded around each other, and hard
ened as to sustain the weight of the mass
of foliage above. It will in some To-
calities attain height of even twenty
feet. When two years old it bears
fruit and then dies, but q number of
young shoots spring up from the base of
the old stem, so that it continually re-
news itself, and the farmer; who is usu-
ally an Indian or negro, has no trouble,
except to keep the weeds and the old
withered trunks cleared away from the
growing plants. Even the trunk is of
some use, for it contains fibre almost
as soft as silk, which can be woven into
the most exquisite muslins. Indeed,
some of the dainty India muslins are
made of this very fibre.
There are as many kinds of bananas
as there are kinds of apples-medium
sized ones, such as we see In the North; ;
big ones foot long; thick ones, almost
like small muskmelons; and little ones
only three or four inches in length.
When you visit fruit stand fear you
are likely to select the biggest and hand
soonest bananas you see, and there is Just
where you make a mistake. The smallest
bananas are in nearly al! cases the sweet
est and juiciest, the tiny "fig" banana
being the best of all. The rind should be
thin, and there should be no ridges or
corners on it. The larger the ridges the
coarser the fruit. The plantain, which
is the very coarsest kind of banana, has
enormous ridges. This species is not fit
to eat without being cooked, but when
boiled or baked or fried it is delicious.
Any coarse banana-that is, one having
a thick rind with large ridges-is good
for cooking. All bananas contain starch
while green, which upon ripening is
changed by natures wonderful chemistry
into sugar. Now if the banana is taken
Just after its rind has begun
to grow golden, but is still streaked with
green, it will contain a great deal Of
starch, which will make it palatablC
/ when cooked, while the small amount OF
sugar which has been formed will give
it sweetness like a sweet potato. StriT
the rind off, and boil it until soft, and il
will make one of the incest vegetables
you ever ate. If you live in the country,
where you are blessed with the luxury OF
an open wood fire, try roasting some
peeled half ripened bananas in the ashes,
as you do potatoes, and see how sayory a
morsel they make. 1t is one of the COM
monest sights along the Amazon to see
groups of half-clad Indian men and wo-
men squatting around little camp-tires
roasting bananas, and having endless
mirth trying TO pick them out OF the hot
Goals without burning their fingers. We
are all used to fried bananas, but we are
prone to forget that for this purpose they
should not be fully ripe, as that makes
them tco soft and too sweet. Above all,
a banana roasted or fried should be
served hot, for as soon as it becomes
cold it grows tough and unpalatable.
This fruit, which is the greatest of all
tropical foods, comes to us chiefly from
Panama and the West Indies in great
ship loads, and in the banana market in
New York the big green lunches
"heads'' they all call them in South
America, just as we speak of heads of
cabbage-containing from five to ten
dozen each, can be bought for dollar
or two dollars and fifty cents, according
to the variety. They are not so expensive,
after all, ard big green bunch hung in
cool cellar will ripen gradually, so as
to furnish n fresh dozen of ripe ones each
day until the whole bunch is gone. In
this way you can enjoy your bananas
! just as they do in the land of palms, for
even there they cut them while green,
and allow them to ripen as we do in the
North.-HmPer'S Young People.