Farmer H and I eat a banana every morning. So that's 14 bananas a week in the Hillbilly household. When I stop by the store, I always pick up a few, so I don't have to make a special trip if we run out. Last Sunday, when I picked up the steaks to grill on the 4th, I bought five bananas at Save A Lot.
As you might imagine, our banana bowl has a variety. Oh, they're the same brand. Dole. But the colors vary. If we have ripe bananas left, I buy the greener ones so they will be ready when the ripe ones are gone. I never have more than eight bananas total in the bowl. It works out pretty well.
Wednesday, we were ready to eat those Save A Lot bananas. They were still pretty green, but Farmer H and The Pony have always liked the greener variety. I don't mind them, but I'd rather have bananas when they first get a few tiny brown spots on them.
Anyhoo... Farmer H was long gone by the time I made it to the kitchen table with my banana. I poured my fake Honey Nut Cheerios on the plate, and picked up my banana.
Huh. It was almost impossible to get the peel started. I often give it a little nip at the base of the stem with my incisors to get a break in the skin to get started peeling. This one didn't want to get nipped! Then it was extremely bitter. Still, it was the SKIN, so I didn't think much of it.
That banana didn't want to peel. The skin was hard. Wouldn't bend. It was like tree bark. I wrenched it down a bit, and it made a noise like a twig breaking. Huh. A tiny bit of banana was exposed. I took a bite.
YUCK! That banana didn't want to be bitten! IT CRUNCHED LIKE WOOD! Bitter!
That's the first time in my life that ever happened! I set that banana aside. Threw it off the porch as I left for town.
When Farmer H got home, I asked about his banana.
"Did you eat a banana this morning?"
"I TRIED to! I couldn't eat it. I threw it out!"
"I KNOW! I had to throw mine away, too! It was like a log. So don't eat those others. I'll get more at the store today. We'll leave these and try one in a few days."
We have not tried them yet. They are still the same color as when I bought them!
Both of these pictures are the bananas I bought Sunday, alongside one I bought Friday. The photo doesn't do the green color justice. Look how it turned my burgundy countertop to purple!
Anyhoo... if I didn't know better, I might suspect these three are not even bananas! They have the consistency of a hoe-handle! I'd think maybe they were plantains, which I've never had. Or some kind of Frankenbanana that never rots. Like McDonald's fries. The sticker on them has the same number as that on the regular bananas. And they were sitting in the middle of the banana display.
Something is fishy in the Save A Lot produce department.
I learned from someone you should start peeling the banana from the non-stem end. It DOES make the peeling easier.
ReplyDeleteI know. That doesn't help tackling whatever weird fruit you have--the weird fruit that's posing as bananas...
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteI saw that somewhere. It might have been on a show about monkeys, and I saw that's how they eat bananas.
These woody bananas are a cypher. They're like the Dorian Gray of the fruit world. Somewhere, I suspect there's a picture of them, all brown and mushy.
Plantains aren't woody or hard. They are pretty much like bananas, just not as sweet. Kind of bland and you cook them before you eat them. You should have taken it back t the store!!
ReplyDeleteThey were picked unripe as is common, but TOO unripe and then kept in cold storage. Usually the "ripen" fairly quickly once out of storage, but yours just weren't ready. This is why I rarely eat bananas now, if I pick them up in the supermarket and can't smell banana, then I don't buy. There is a very small window here where bananas are actually fresh and naturally ripened. Many people now eat them green and have grown up thinking bananas are supposed to be crunchy. A ripe, soft banana, gets thrown away by them.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to be like Kramer, and get banned for returning fruit!
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River,
Save A Lot sets the really ripe bananas up front in a cart, FREE for the taking! Yet few people take them. I guess nobody bakes banana bread around here.
I sure don't think bananas should be crunchy, but Farmer H and The Pony DO like them green and firm.