| bananas |
| |
 |
Elisabeth
Luard pays tribute to this succulent, versatile fruit,
whose global popularity has placed it at the centre of
a political storm. Photographs by David Loftus |
|
| |
The Cinderella of
the fruit bowl, miraculous with cream, mandatory with morning
cornflakes, marvellous at the midday break, the banana has no
fixed season. As with all tropical fruit, we may enjoy it when
we please. And what better time than now, when winter’s
fruits have lost their sparkle and the first spring berries
have yet to ripen on the stalk?
So transportable, so digestible, so satisfying, the banana is
the victim of its own perfection. If it weren’t so cheap, so
universally obtainable, we’d value it as a tropical luxury.
Its merrily priapic shape - God’s gift to the bar-room
comedian - contributes to its charm. Carmen Miranda flaunted
it; Elvis came to sticky end on it (fried in a sandwich, with
peanut butter and bacon); President Reagan’s son unzipped it
on tv to demonstrate how to put on a condom. Now peel it and
savour its fragrance, complex as designer perfume - a hint of
vanilla, a touch of spice, a whisper of jasmine. The texture
is unctuous, offering little resistance to the teeth. The
taste is buttery, honeyed, robust, with an underlying
sweetness.
To those not intimate with its habitat, the banana tree can
come as something of a surprise. In fact, it’s not a tree at
all but a gigantic grass, an ancient cultivar of the genus
Musa. It has a rhizome rather than a root, a trunk formed from
its own overlapping leaves, and a flowering stalk with a
remarkably sexy-looking male blossom - huge scarlet bracts
which peel back to expose a pointed ivory bud. In comparison,
the female blooms seem small and insignificant, but it is they
that produce the fruit, semicircular ‘hands’ which cup the
stem like elegant emerald bracelets. Left to its own devices,
the plant can grow to ten metres, although the insecurity of
its footing and the weight of the fruit - as many as 200 per
stalk - can cause it to topple before its time. The mat, the
carpet of shoots sent out by a single rhizome, can live for 50
years or more, creating a jungle of broken stalks and
dried-out leaves which snap and rattle underfoot.
The Cavendish is the main dessert banana, but there is a great
deal of variety to be found in size and colour. The pretty
baby bananas, known as ladies’ fingers, are exquisitely
scented and very sweet - children love them. The red-skinned
variety often has flesh with an orange tinge - a good cooker,
delicious roasted in the skin, split and sprinkled with
cinnamon and brown sugar. When very ripe, the flesh softens
and browns - perfect for banana bread. Heating the ripe fruit
emphasises its starchiness, making the flavour more robust,
the flesh more chewy. The plantain, a green (unripened)
banana, is inedible raw, but when cooked it’s more like a
root than a fruit, starchy and bland, the ideal background for
Creole stews and West Indian curries. As with all unripe
fruit, it’s difficult to peel: you need a sharp knife and a
strong wrist.
Politically, the banana is something of a hot potato. Most of
the world’s exports come from central and southern America -
Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia - which produce what are
known as dollar bananas, a trade controlled by two us
corporations, Dole and Chiquita. The pair wield considerable
political clout, and it’s their objections to the agreements
reached in the postwar years by Europe’s ex-colonial powers
to favour their own dependents which triggered the recent
trade war between Washington and Brussels.
Europe’s bananas traditionally come from the non-dollar or
acp (African-Caribbean-Pacific) countries. Much of the fruit
on uk shelves is grown in the Windward Islands, where some
3,500 small farmers work thin volcanic soil on steep slopes in
uncertain weather conditions, conditions which permit the
fruit to develop more slowly - resulting, the producers
maintain, in bananas with thinner skins and a finer flavour
than those grown in flat fields under constant sunshine. The
Dominican Republic leads the way producing increasingly
popular organics, delicious little fruits, well worth the
premium. Many of the Windward farms are already in transition,
although organic certification is still at least a year away.
It is to be hoped the Caribbean producers survive the current
politico-economic onslaught for long enough to achieve organic
status, if only for the sake of our taste buds. Windward
bananas have a natural succulence and delicacy of flavour not
shared by the dollar-bananas - by comparison fat, floury and
flavourless. But don’t take my word for it. Suck one and
see. Then vote, like those who put the thumbscrews on our
politicians, with your purse. |
|
