[Food] Flaming Bananas

by Jesse Yancy
Graphic Illustration by Darren Schwindaman
June 7, 2006

During his famously quoted expedition in search of Dr. Livingston, Stanley also said, “If we run out of food, well, we’ll eat bananas.”

His flippant dismissal of this vital global foodstuff (doubtless in lieu of such English staples as boiled beef) summed up the Brit empiricist mind of his day. Stanley’s 15 minutes of Victorian condescension notwithstanding, bananas had been a staple in the southeastern quarter of the globe since before the days of Homo erectus. While European versions of the Expulsion have Eve offering an apple as the instrument of temptation, many African, Asian and Oceanic interpretations depict Adam succumbing to a nice banana.

Bananas grow upward on huge stalks that can contain more than a hundred fruit arrayed in a series of tiers. Before Chiquita and other mega-growers began shipping bananas in chemically sterilized bunches, stores would impale whole untreated stalks on ceiling hooks to ripen.

My grandfather Jess kept a small country store that supported an endless series of banana stalks from the Cockrell Banana Company in Tupelo as well as any amount of riff-raff and a few wayward in-laws. Jess inspected all produce before he put it up for sale, and occasionally he’d discover some sort of exotic fauna cowering deep amid the bananas, usually a spider big enough to scare the bejeesus out of a little old lady out to make pudding for the church social. Once, to his great delight, he found a small tropical boa in a stalk and kept it in a glass gallon jar with some hay in the bottom for everyone to ogle at until he sent it to Ole Miss, where it enjoyed a long, happy career as a desensitizing agent for people with snake phobias. Jess once said to a ne’er-do-well cousin that he could get a snake into the University of Mississippi, “but I can’t even get you into barber school.”

The fruit of the banana is a sublime canvas of starches, sugars and nutrients, and while potassium makes for a nice touch, from a cooking standpoint the starches and sugars determine its preparation and its selection. If you’re simply going to eat a banana, eat a ripe banana, not just some Johnny–come–lately you happen to pick up in the produce section. However tempting you might find those firm fruit, if you’re going to use them anytime soon, they should be avoided: They may be hard, but they’re also bitter and expensive. It should go without saying that because bananas are sold in bunches that ripen simultaneously, size shouldn’t really be a key consideration. (You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.)

Maturation is a wonderful thing, people, especially when it comes to fruit. Good bananas don’t have a tinge of green upon them: they’re usually firm, freckled and aromatic. They’re also less expensive, because—sad to say—society’s obsession with youth extends even to bananas, and supermarkets probably throw away as many “over-ripe” bananas (meaning just the sort of quality fruit I’ve described) as they sell green ones.

The most famous banana dish in the South (aside from the ubiquitous muddy pudding) is Bananas Foster, an old New Orleans recipe. Merida, the coastal capital of Yucatan, Mexico, lies a little over 600 miles due south of the mouth of the Mississippi, making it the most easily accessible tropical port to the Crescent City. There, as in Mobile (site of entry for imported fire ants) and all along the Gulf, tropical fruits and vegetables have graced the local cuisine for over a century.

Bananas Foster originated in the most celebrated restaurant in New Orleans. In 1951, Owen E. Brennan challenged his chef, Paul Blangé, to invent a new banana recipe to commemorate the fruit’s commercial importance to the city. Blangé created Bananas Foster. The dessert is named for Richard Foster, owner of the Foster Awning Company (and a frequent customer), who served with Brennan on the New Orleans Crime Commission, a heroic civic effort designed to clean up the French Quarter that met with varying degrees of success. This recipe is from the Brennan’s Restaurant Web site, [url=http://www.brennansneworleans.com]http://www.brennansneworleans.com[/url]

Bananas Foster (Serves four):
1/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup banana liqueur
4 bananas cut in half lengthwise, then halved
1/4 cup dark rum
4 scoops vanilla ice cream

Combine the butter, sugar and cinnamon in a flambé pan or skillet. Place over low heat and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the liqueur, and place the bananas in the pan. When the banana sections begin to brown, carefully add the rum. Continue to cook the sauce until the rum is hot, and flame the sauce (I recommend a fireplace lighter). When the flames subside, lift the bananas out of the pan and place in pieces over the ice cream. Generously cover with the warm sauce and serve immediately.

 
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