Deep magenta in color and common to the Southeast Asian cuisine, Banana flowers are commonly used as vegetables for cooking in countries such as Laos, India, Thailand, China, Burma, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. These beautiful flowers hang like tear-drop-shaped pendants at the end of banana clusters that grow in tropical climates. Banana flowers have abundant uses in the kitchen, including soup, stir fries, meat and vegetable stews and salads. The inner petals, or bracts, are the edible parts. Eaten straight off the cutting board, they are starchy and bitter but once soaked in a lemon juice and water mixture for half hour then rinsed, they are leek-like, both in substance and taste. They end up being thin with a slight crunch and delicate to taste. Banana flowers are high in vitamins A and C and have modest amounts of calcium and iron.