Banana

“ Few leaves are more attractive than these young banana leaves in their first freshness of delicate green, of perfect form and grace, and of spotless purity. But with increasing age the color deepens, and the first wind and rain tear the exquisite blade in numberless places between its parallel veins; so that an old leaf becomes finally but two rows of ribbons and tatters, dull or dry, fringing a battered leaf-stalk. ”

“ These large-leafed, upright little trees are the Madagascar coffee, and the smaller and more graceful ones, the Java coffee—how they take us back to those happy days and months among the coffee plantations, long ago!—and near by is the friendly banana, so common an object that we pass its torn, drooping leaves with scarcely a thought, but it is worth more than a passing glance, for there is no plant in all the tropics more useful than the banana. ”

“ I doubt if one banana-eater in a hundred knows or cares whether or not it contains even as much nourishment as a cucumber or a watermelon. What has given the banana its great vogue is simply and solely its delicious Flavor. In its Flavor lies its commercial value; its Flavor has put money—often a fortune—into the pockets of hundreds of thousands of planters, shippers, and wholesale and retail dealers. There are whole fleets of steamers for carrying bananas to American ports, and other fleets carry them to Germany, to England, to France, and other European countries. ”

“ Among the tropical and equinoctial fruits, the plantain and banana ornament the orchards with their large green leaves, being the emblem of luxuriant fertility: this luscious and wholesome fruit ministers to the appetite of the rich, and satisfies the hunger of the poor. No native will drink water immediately after eating the plantain, nor any thing but water after the banana. ”

“ The banana-tree renews itself annually, growing to a height of ten or twelve feet, and bearing heavy clusters of from sixty to a hundred individual fruits, green at first, but golden in hue when ripe. After bearing its fruit, the tree wilts and decays like a cornstalk, but in due time again springs up from the roots to bear another annual luxuriant crop. One clever writer tells us that the banana is "the devil's agent," because the abundant food supply which it affords, demanding so little of man in return, is a promoter of idleness. ”

“ The BANANA is a valuable plant (Musa sapientum) which grows in the West Indies and other tropical countries, and has leaves about six feet in length, and a foot broad in the middle; and fruit four or five inches long, and about the shape of a cucumber. When ripe, the banana is an agreeable fruit, with a soft and luscious pulp; and is frequently introduced in desserts in the West Indies. ”

“ The banana is the variety which is always eaten as a fruit, having a delicate aromatic flavour; the plantain is a larger variety which is best cooked. Roasted in the green state it is an excellent vegetable resembling roasted chestnuts; when ripe it is sometimes pulped and boiled with water, making a very agreeable sweet soup; or it is roasted, or cut into slices and fried, in either form being a delicious tropical substitute for fruit pudding. These plants are annuals, producing one immense bunch of fruit. ”

“ THE banana is of East Indian origin, but of an antiquity so great that man has no record of its appearance on earth as an edible fruit, nor can any variety of the plant be found today growing wild. The importance of the banana as a source of food for the human race in all warm countries of low altitude is probably equaled by no other plant, owing to the fact that a greater amount of nourishment can be secured from an acre of bananas than from any other product of the soil. ”

“ But practical man, with his eye always steadily fixed on the one important quality of edibility—the sum and substance to most people of all botanical research—has confined his attention almost entirely to the fruit of the banana. In all essentials (other than the systematically unimportant one just alluded to) the banana fruit in its original state exactly resembles the capsule of the iris—that pretty pod that divides in three when ripe, and shows the delicate orange-coated seeds lying in triple rows within—only, in the banana, the fruit does not open ”

“ Another feature of the banana, of which man takes full advantage, is that though the bunch be removed before the fruit is matured as to size, the ripening process proceeds, just as though there had been no untimely interference. The bananas may be small, but will, as a rule, be almost as sweetly flavoured as those allowed to develop on the plant. ”

“ For shipping purposes the banana is gathered while still green, and often the ripening has not reached the stage when the ordinary yellow color which characterizes the ripe fruit is seen when it reaches the markets in the center of the country. The banana is not only valued for its peculiar flavor, which is pleasant and sweet, sometimes almost too much so, but it also has a high nutritive value, being a substance rich in carbohydrates and growing in such abundance that its price is within the reach of the poorest classes. ”

“ Stripping off the leaves, you come to a shoot twenty inches or two feet in length, the interior of which consists of a white substance resembling an office ruler in thickness, and which tastes something like a chestnut, but is much more milky and sweet. The fruit of the wild banana has a most delicious flavour, but is so full of small seeds that it is impossible to swallow it. ”

“ A bountiful repast of bread-fruit, plantains, yams and coconuts is spread out upon a cover of banana leaves, and everybody sits down cross-legged and eats for fully ten minutes before a word is spoken. ”

“ To make the sauce, dilute the jelly with boiling water; add a few chopped blanched almonds and shredded candied orange-peel. The unripe and not fully developed banana is devoid of sweetness and when roasted resembles a baked potato. In hot climates the natives live mostly on bananas, and a nation is said to be cursed where they grow, because the ease with which they get their living makes them lazy. ”

“ Green bananas are no more fit for food than are green apples. Ripe bananas are neither starchy nor indigestible. When the banana is ripe it contains a trace of starch, all the rest having been changed to sugar. A ripe banana is mellow and sweet, but firm. The skin is either entirely black, or black in spots, but the flesh is unspotted. The best bananas can often be purchased for one-half of the price of those that are not yet fit to eat.
Bananas are a rich food. Weight for weight they contain more nourishment than Irish potatoes. A few nuts or a glass of milk and bananas make a good meal. ”

“ The broad leaves of two fine banana-plants shaded birds and ferns from the sun, which otherwise would have beaten in on them too fiercely through the window of the verandah. A banana-plant is a delightful thing to cultivate; it grows so rapidly, and is so full of health and strength ”

“ When sun-dried and finely ground, a splendid highly nutritious banana-flour is produced, that is not only pleasant to the taste, but according to the report of physicians far more easily digested and assimilated than is the flour of wheat or corn. From good banana flour, either bread, crackers, griddle cakes or fancy pastry may be made, that would be relished on any table. ”

“ You strip the green from the upper part till it becomes white; when soft, like a turnip well boiled, if eat with milk or butter it is the best of all food, wholesome, nourishing, and easily digested. 40
We see in some of the Egyptian antique statues the figure of Isis sitting between some branches of the banana tree, as it is supposed, and some handfuls of ears of wheat; you see likewise the hippopotamus ravaging a quantity of banana tree. Yet the banana is merely adventitious in Egypt, it is a native of Syria ”

“ In the interior, of course, they dwell together in amity, because there is nothing for them to quarrel about.
The banana, planted with a careless hand, supplies the staff of life, besides thatch, fuel, and fibre for nets and lines: when they want cereals, maize, holcus, and panicum will grow almost spontaneously. The various palm-trees give building materials, oil, wine, and other requisites too numerous to mention. ”

“ The wild orange is in bloom, which freights the air with delicious odors, although the fruit is only used for making beverages and marmalade. The banana, which is cultivated as corn is farther North, has commenced putting up fresh shoots, whose leaves are to take the place of those rent in shreds by the rude winds that have spent their fury on this coast during the Northern winters. ”

“ The Banana which grows in all the hot parts of America, and furnishes the Indians with the chief part of their daily food, producing more nutritious substance, in less space, and with less trouble than any other known plant. ”

“ While some degree of progress has been made in the raising of bananas and cocoanuts, very little has been done with the other fruits, and the possibilities are wonderful.
The banana, of which millions of bunches are shipped annually, easily leads its competitors, in point of value. It is scarcely necessary to comment upon a fruit so well known to every American. ”

“ Thanks to rapid transportation, the banana has become a staple. It is quite commonly believed that bananas are very starchy and rather indigestible. This may be true when they are green, but not when they are ripe. ”

“ The bread-fruit tree is interesting, with its handsome feathery leaves, and its large, melon-shaped product. It grows to fifty feet in height, and bears fruit constantly for three quarters of the year, then takes a three months' rest. It is only equaled in the profuseness of its product by the banana, forming one of the staple sources of food supply to the lazy, indolent denizens of tropical regions. ”

“ No one need starve or pine for lack of wholesome appetising and nutritious food while the banana grows as it does in North Queensland, and common as it is, the banana is one of the curiosities of the vegetable world. ”

“ Any one of the vast leaves of the banana is more waterproof than the most expensive woven stuff. And from the first tree you can tear off a long strip of fibre that holds better than any rope. And thirty seconds' work on a great palm leaf produces a basket-bag which will carry incredible weights all day, and can be thrown away in the evening. ”

“ There is nothing chimerical in the success of the banana trade. America statistically absorbs most of this produce. On all sides we hear of the variety of ways it is useful as an article of diet, whilst its nutritive powers are unquestioned.
America largely buys banana flour. In its unripe stages it is more properly a vegetable. Green bananas mashed and eaten like potatoes form most useful food, whilst ripe bananas, dried and put up in boxes like figs, are both wholesome and satisfying. ”

“ The dwarf banana, or Platano Enano, has a very pleasant flavor, not unlike that of the Johnson, or banana of commerce, and may be found in almost every garden in the Island. The plant reaches a height of only five or six feet, and the bunches of fruit are long and heavy, filled almost to the tip, and often supported by a forked stock, caught under the neck of the stalk so that the weight of the fruit will not break or pull over the plant itself. ”

“ The banana proper is eaten raw, as a fruit, and is allowed accordingly to ripen thoroughly before being picked for market; the plantain, which is the true food-stuff of all the equatorial region in both hemispheres, is gathered green and roasted as a vegetable, or, to use the more expressive West Indian negro phrase, as a bread-kind. Millions of human beings in Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean live almost entirely on the mild and succulent but tasteless plantain. ”

“ One tree will live and-bear, with little or no cultivation, for eighty years. Bananas are four before they bear. The finer banana is never seen in the States, as it will not bear shipping. The kind shipped there the people here consider unfit to eat unless cooked, and they prepare some very dainty dishes from them. ”

“ But the banana, more than any other plant we know of, has managed for many centuries to do without seeds altogether. The cultivated sort, especially in America, is quite seedless, and the plants are propagated entirely by suckers. ”

“ Its cultivation antedates historical records in India. Pliny mentions that the Greeks under Alexander the Great saw it in India.
The banana plant is the most wonderfully productive fruit in the world. It is a native of Asia, but most of our bananas come from the New World. Here the plant is full grown and the bananas ripe. From the time the suckers are planted to the gathering of the fruit is less than a year, so rapidly does the plant come to maturity. ”

“ The banana has accompanied man into all parts of the tropical world, and for the natives at least still remains the one unfailing staff of life. The bulb once placed in moist fertile earth will continue to propagate itself and to produce fruit indefinitely, even without care of any kind, although for commercial purposes it may be improved and its productiveness increased through selection and cultivation. ”

“ But they all have beautiful dark-brown eyes.
A great feed, Fa-Samoa, was next spread on the grass, on layers of fresh green banana-leaves. There were roast sucking-pigs, and pigeons stewed in taro leaves, or else baked on hot stones in earth ovens; cray-fish, and prawns, and divers kinds of fish; pine-apples, bananas, and oranges; salad of cocoa-palm, like most delicious celery; bread-fruit prepared in various ways—boiled, baked, and roast in wood-ashes ”