My breakfast banana

Yesterday I went to market and bought several types of banana. They are now sitting on the counter and I am trying to decide which one to have with my breakfast. As I look at them I think about their long history, of their beginnings in Asia, their travels to Africa, and eventually finding rest in the tropical and sub-tropical world. Bananas and plantains are now one of the most popular fruits consumed world-wide, and they are tasty and healthy fruits.

Bananas and plantains belong to the genus Musa, of which about 70 species are known. They are herbaceous plants and although may grow as tall as a small tree the stem is not woody but made up of the long leaf petioles (leaf stalks) wrapped around each other. When the plant is ready to flower a true stem grows up through the leaf sheaf.

Bananas originate from the Indomalayan region and parts of north-east Australasia but has now been introduced to many tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Most of the banana varieties that we know today are descended from two wild species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The wild bananas had very little flesh and many seeds and reproduced sexually. Domestication of bananas began about 7,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea involving hybridisation and selection for fruit that had relatively more flesh to produce about 1,000 varieties that we know today. Most of these bananas are seedless and sterile therefore must be propagated vegetatively.

About 3,000 years ago bananas reached Africa through what is termed the Monsoon Exchange: the wind assisted trade networks between India and Africa across the Indian Ocean. In winter the west winds facilitated sailing from India across the Indian Ocean to the East African Coast as far as Madagascar, and in summer the Monsoon winds took the ships in the opposite direction. The rootstock or underground stem was taken as food on these long journeys and could also be used as planting material when the destination was reached.

African farmers developed about 120 more plantain cultivars (cultivated varieties) and 60 more cooking banana cultivars, thus they became one of the most important staple foods on the continent.

The next stage on the journey came with the maritime explorations of Portugal and Spain in the fifteenth century. When the explorers arrived in the Canary Islands and Madeira they encountered sugar for the first time. Enslaved Africans were taken to these islands to work on the sugar plantations along with their basic foods, plantains and bananas. These among other African grown crops formed the staples taken on the slave ships on their journeys acros the Atlantic to Santo Domingo and the New World.

Bananas and plantains are often referred to as figs in Trinidad and Tobago and the green ones of any type are used for cooking and called green figs. I have always wondered why and this is what I found in In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World.

“Magellan, who circum-navigated the globe on behalf of the Spanish crown used the word 'fig' to describe the unfamiliar fruit in his first experience with the banana in the western Pacific in 1521. Jean Barbot used the same term for the African food staple on his slave voyage to Guinea in the late seventeenth century…"

In Africa both bananas and plantains were referred to as bananas, but now in the western world the sweeter varieties are termed bananas and the starchier, cooking varieties as plantains.

In Trinidad plantains were an important staple and slaves were allowed provision grounds where they grew plantains and also bananas for their own consumption and for sale. In this way these fruits they were introduced into the local cuisine. All bananas are very nutritious, having significant amounts of potassium, magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, copper, manganese, fibre and complex carbohydrates or sugars in the case of bananas and antioxidants and they are good for digestive health. While contemplating all of this I thought about all the bananas and plantains that I knew in the shops and the market. In the supermarket most of the bananas we see are the large Cavendish bananas. These began to be grown commercially in the early 20th century but then replaced the popular Gros Michel in the 1950s which succumbed to Panama disease, a fungus disease. The Gros Michel, a medium-sized very sweet banana is still grown in Trinidad by local farmers. The lacatan or Jamaican lacatan, or its official name Masak Hijau, is a cultivar of the Cavendish banana (and not to be confused with the Phillpine lakatan). It is popular in the West Indies.

Also popular in the market are silk figs, a small plump banana with a thin skin which may be sweet and yellow skinned or green skinned, slightly more tart in flavour. These may be eaten raw when ripe or cooked when half ripe "boil and fry,” that is boiled until soft then sauteed with seasonings to taste. Another very small banana, the chiquito, about three inches long, is sweet and thin-skinned with yellow flesh, may be added to salads or eaten as it is.

Moko figs are a short, six to seven-inch long cooking banana. The skin is thick and ridged, giving a squarish shape to the fruit, and the flesh is white. These may be boiled or fried to accompany almost any meal.

The mataburro/mataborro has a special place in Trinidad folklore. The name literally translated from the Spanish means "kill donkey." It is said that if a person drinks rum (especially bush rum) and eats a mataburro they will die. I don’t know anyone who has tested out this theory. These bananas are grown in the country areas of Trinidad and may have yellow skins, red skins or even brown skins. They may be cooked when unripe and eaten like any other dessert banana when ripe.

Plantains, of which there are several varieties, are generally bigger with thick, ridged skin. They have starchier flesh than bananas which is converted to sugars as they ripen. Plantains must always be cooked, often fried or steamed with rice, or made into plantain flour or “pong plantain” (pounded plantain).

It’s time for breakfast and I’ve decided I’ll have silk figs with my cereal this morning. Try a new banana today.

Contact the Eastern Horticultural Club at 357-5033, 720-2698 or easternhorticultural@hotmail.com The club meets the first Saturday of every month (except public holidays) at 3 pm at the YWCA, Gordon St, St Augustine.