h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have found seeds in bananas - they're the little brown dots in the banana daiquiri! Well, at least the ones I make at home...

Yes, if anybody has any info on this, please gimme! I know that there's something that looks like seeds in the banana, and that you can't plant a banana and grow a banana tree.

- Lentilla

Yes, I hear that rainforest floors have poor soil. That's the main reason it's daft to cut them down for farming - you end up with something like desert in a few years.

It does make you curious though doesn't it? If that was the reason - you know, to draw nutrients out of the soil then dump them back at the end of the season, you'd think it would make more sense to keep the stuff in the rhizomes where the likes of us and our ape ancestors couldn't reach it. Presumably the leaves will decompose back into the leaf litter at the end of the season, providing the usual level of nutrient recycling. Hmm, interesting. I want to know. How can I find out? It'll probably just end up on the huge teetering heap of things I don't know.

Ooh, I just had a thought: perhaps the banana plants actually prefer their nutrients filtered through an ape. If the ape answers the call of nature in the location of the plant, perhaps s/he leaves more than s/he took, if you catch my drift. Ah well, just a thought.

I think you may be on to something there... Many plants actually prefer their fruit to be eaten and the seeds to be deposited (so to speak) somewhere else. They're already in a nice little lump of fertilizer!

Well, the best thing to do with bananas, IMHO, is to cut them in half, fry them, and then pour melted chocolate over them... yummmmm...

Yuck that sounds gross!

No, just fry them enough to brown them... or they /are/ disgusting... and use dark chocolate... just a dribble...

Read an article recently about chamber pots in Archaeology Today: After French newlyweds consummated their marriage, they were interrupted at midnight by a drunken group of their friends, carrying a chamber pot filled with champagne and chocolate covered bananas. Now THAT sounds gross. Not to mention scatological.

Actually, the bananas with chocolate sounds very delicious - there's lots of variations of that recipe. I think if I were to try that, I'd want a big bowl of vanilla ice cream to go with.

My arteries are clogging just thinking about it...

I actually read about that French custom in American Anthropologist a couple of years ago... and the author of the paper seemed to be adamant that there was nothing scatological about it at all! Tch! Anthropologists, eh?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes it IS a phallic symbol!

Well... actually, cholesterol in limited quantities is vital for you to live... so if you don't eat McDonalds every day, you're fine...

Very true. I'd go crazy without cholesterol and sugar.

I am all ready crazy, so it doesn't matter, I am afraid!!!

Bananas are the biggest sellers in grocery stores!!! I know, because, I have worked in two of them(grocery stores, not bananas)!!!

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Well done!

Woohoo! Thanks, Kraus!

I have the following comments.

a: What is broiling? I have often read this in American recipes and assume it is some form of cooking, probably grilling (with the heat just from above?)

b: You say "stick them in the fridge" twice. That is rather sloppy style, I would say, but that is up to the editors to judge and in no way does it detract from the quality of the article.

c: I thought the seeds were somewhere else - not in the fruit. Like potato fruit grows on the plant above ground. I am sure we bought some banana seeds at a tropical garden once and they were about the size of a walnut.

d: what is heavy cream? Is that double cream?

e: And I am afraid I ought to know this, but what is triple sec? Is it a kind of champagne - in which case a tablespoon isn't much, so I doubt it.

f: Twice you say do not refrigerate bananas, and once you say to put them in the fridge when they are ripe. So what do I do? Best is probably buy them and eat them straight away. I, for one, usually buy one more than I think I'll need and eat it on the way home from the shop.

g: Maybe you could point out that bananas are supposed to be constipating (they have the opposite effect on all members of my family, but they certainly seem to have _some_ effect on __everyone__.)

h: and that a mashed banana is probably the first thing a baby will get to eat - at least in England it is considered the most convenient and most common food for weaning.

i. I also once read an article on a girl who did belly-dancing and she said that a banana was the best thing to eat just before performing if she needed something because it has the right amount of nutritious elements.

j: Don't they have a high calcium content - or maybe some other important minerals?


All in all, I think this is a very well written and well researched article. I certainly learned something. And I think that universal subjects such as food should be given high priority in the Guide, because an entry about a place is only of interest to someone who has been there or is going there, but food - such as bananas -we can enjoy anywhere and everywhere.

So well done.

TC

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Congratulations!

Trillian's Child: (what was her name... Friday?)

a) As I've always understood it, broiling is when you put the items in the oven in a pan - I've probably broiled several things without meaning to! Broiling is "the act of cooking something by radiant heat" but I've always thought there was a connotation of "in its own juices."

b) Yes, I do go on about that, don't I! I guess I wanted to emphasize that fact. For years I didn't like bananas, because the first thing I did when I got them home was pop them in the fridge! Maybe the editors can take one of those references out - maybe I will if they haven't gotten to it yet...

c) I've never heard that! Hmm... All my sources say the seeds are actually in the banana, and the plant propagates by rhizomes (little shoots from the root mass at the base). To research your question, I went looking on the web, and found this site - it looks as if you can buy the rooted rhizomes of banana trees from this site, but no banana seeds. They do sell some seeds of species that resemble banana trees, like the "Pink Ginger" or "Paw Paw," but these plants don't produce fruit. http://www.banana-tree.com/

d) I suspect heavy cream is straight cream (instead of half-and-half) - my source didn't specify.

e) Triple sec is orange liqueur. If you feel like going through the trouble, you can make triple sec with the banana liqueur recipe - simply replace the two ripe bananas with two peeled oranges and their zest. The white part of the rind will add some bitterness to it. This is a lot of trouble for triple sec - probably you could substitute orange juice, and never notice the difference.

f) When the bananas have gotten as ripe as you want them to get, put them in the fridge to prevent them from getting any riper. This will halt the process, but it means you won't find a banana-smelling puddle (and no bananas) on your counter one day. But bananas don't keep very well in the fridge or on the counter, so your best bet is to buy them fresh and use them as soon as they're ripe.

g) I think that green bananas will cause some stomach upset (I think I mentioned that in the "When Do I Eat This Banana?" section.) I wasn't aware that they caused constipation/diarrhea - I guess I'm lucky!

H, I, and J) Bananas don't really have a high concentration of anything, but they have a little bit of everything. They do have more potassium than average (11% RDA), and more fiber.

Thanks TC! I really enjoyed writing this article, and I found out a lot more than I expected about bananas!

- Lentilla

OK - fine. No further comments except that the way you describe "broiling" I would translate that as "roasting" but it seems a strange thing to do with bananas. Now grilling I can live with.