Let’s talk about bananas. I like them sliced on my morning cereal. My wife says I should split them down the middle before slicing.
“Smaller bites,” she says, “and more of them.” Sorry, I tell her, split bananas come only in glass dishes with three scoops of ice cream between them and lots of sauces, syrups, sprinkles and fruit strewn on top.
I had banana palms in my yard when I lived in Hawaii. Chinese bananas. Great tasting fruit but you only pick them when you eat them. Otherwise they rot within hours. Bluefields, on the other hand have greater staying power. We get them at the super market. I had a Bluefield in Hawaii too, but it never produced. I think there needed to be a male tree in the neighborhood for that to happen.
Hawaii, by the way, produces 40 percent of all the bananas consumed in the United States. The rest come from banana republics in Central America.
Half the nutritionists in the world say we should eat a banana every day for the potassium. The other half say they are fattening and should be avoided. I compromise and eat half a banana. I give my wife the other half, split down the middle, of course, and sliced onto her cereal.
Most people peel bananas the wrong way, starting with the stem. The stem is at the bottom of the fruit. If you peel it from the top the strings stay with the peel. Monkeys have known this for years.
Bananas are part of our culture. Vaudeville shows always had a Second Banana, the foil for jokes. Pratfalls start with slipping on a banana peel. People who are nuts have simply gone bananas.
I just like them on my cereal.
