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COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY |
MUSA SAPIENTUM, ADAM'S FIG, BANANA, PLANTAIN, MUSA MACULATA
Garrett, Theodore Francis (edited by). 1898. the Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery. L. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand, W.C. London. Vol. I
(Musa sapientum) is used in eating as fresh or as baked. There are several different types of bananas.
Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.
In the United States, Bananas (Musa paradisiaca subsp. sapientum, principally) imported in huge numbers from Central and South America, have long been known as highly prized fruits.
The spectacular big leaves of the commercial Banana plant are important as well to the connoisseur cook. In the tropics, these fronds-frequently six to ten feet in length and a couple of feet across-are used much as we do aluminum foil or parchment paper.
Banana Types and Varieties
| Types/Varieties | Description |
| Cavendish | This is the common banana introduced at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. |
| "Lady Finger" |
This is a tiny, yellow nino which looks like a common
Cavendish banana but smaller. It is sweeter than the Cavendish and
a popular table decoration. |
| Red Banana | This 3- to 4- red banana is creamier and not as sweet as the Cavendish. It is ripe when the deep purple color has turned bright red. |
| Plantains | These bananas are cooked bananas which are often steamed or stir-fried. They are generally larger than the Cavendish. The bananas are ripe when the skin turns black. Depending upon their maturity, they may look like green, bruised or black bananas. When green or yellow skinned, slices or fried. They are similar to starchy potatoes. Semiripe plantains may be actually boiled and mashed, similar to potatoes. If ripe, they are completely black and fry nicely for a dessert like dish. |
| Burros | The Asian sour plantain. The banana is fatter than the Mexican plantain. |
| Mazano or Apple Banana | Is not as sweet as Cavendish. This 2 to 3 inch firm, powdery texture similar to Golden Delicious apple |
| Yellow Hawaiian | are plumper version of the burro. If fried, have a mealy texture similar to the French Fry. |
Adapted from Barnes, S. 1998, January 21. Going bananas: Exotic varieties add to popularity. Corvallis Gazette Times p. C2.
The Cavendish is underattack by two fungi and so one must look to a variety of other varieties. When I was in Indonesia, there were many more varieties that those listed above. It was amazing the number and variation one could get.
The banana is of the family Muscaceae, the largest of tree-like herbs grown for fruit, large striking foliage and for fiber. This family has two genera, Musa and Ensete. The genus Ensete does not bear edible fruit. The genus Musa provides both fruit and fiber. The banana family consists of herbs, some so large as to appear to be trees, reaching several meters in height. Leaves are large, broad, alternate, not toothed, simple, not lobed or divided, but often appearing so because of tattering by wind, spirally arranged and forming a trunk by their sheathing bases.
Generally speaking, a good banana should be plump, unblemished, firm and bright in appearance. Exact color is not a quality factor. A greenish banana may be of just as good quality as a fully yellow one, but not yet at eating stage. It can be ripened at room temperature. However, bananas displayed at retail usually are mostly if not all yellow, and often are ready to eat or require only very brief ripening. When the banana is at the stage the consumer likes it may be refrigerated. Some persons like bananas fully ripe with brown flecked skin; and some like them at the all-yellow stage; or even with a green tip. When they reach the desired stage, reserve supplies can be cooled and will keep for several days with continued good quality of the flesh, but the skin may turn brown.
On the other hand, the quality of a green banana will be damaged by ordinary household refrigeration. Once the ripening cycle of the banana has been interrupted by cold, it does not resume normal ripening when the temperature is raised. So keep it out of the refrigerator until it has reached the desired ripeness.
Avoid fruit that is soft, or otherwise shows bruising by considerable discoloration.
United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Assn. 727 N. Washington, Alexandria, VA 22314. MARCH 1969 original author, R.A. SEELIG; scanned and edited by ZoeAnn Holmes
Excerpts from Fairclough, G. and D. McDermott. 1999August 9. The Banana business Is Rotten, So Why Do People Fight Over It?. The Wall Street Journal vp;/ CXOO (#27), p. A1.
"Banana farming is a brutal business, from the sprawling plantations
of Lain America to the struggling plots of the Caribbean islands.
In the past 10 years, retail U.S. banana prices have fallen roughly
15%, adjusted for inflation. Global sales are weak; the Russians and
Chinese can't afford to buy many bananas this year.
Sludge Factor
The world's three largest banana companies, Dole Food Co., Chiquita
Brands International Inc. and Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc.-all based
in the U.S.-have been diversifying as banana profits have slipped.
Hurricanes and bugs are constant menaces. A single misfiring refrigeration
unit can convert a multiton shipment into gooey brownish sludge-as
happened not long ago to $1.4 million boatload of Fresh Del Monte
Bananas
...
The banana business's problem isn't product popularity. About 65%
of U.S. households buy bananas at least once a week, compared with
about 31% for apples. The average American eats about 28 pounds of
bananas a year-more than any other fresh fruit. But bananas are growing
even faster than we can eat them. World banana production has been
climbing steadily, reaching 58.6 million tons last year, according
to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization. That's up
24% from the start of the decade. Even Hurricane Mitch, which wiped
out production in much of Honduras and parts of Guatemala last year,
hasn't put much of a dent in the global banana glut.
... In a sense, the banana business contains the seeds of its own
troubles. Bananas are prolific. Think rabbits. Bananas don't grow
on trees; technically the banana plant is the world's largest herb.
But they do grow all year long, so every season is banyan season.
An average acre of banana plants today produces about seven tons of
fruit a year, nearly double the output of an acre of apple trees and
six times that of an acre of wheat."you need an outlet for all that
fruit. That's why people fight so hard to protect their markets,"
says Mario A. Boutin, Chiquita's general manager in Costa Rica.
Two varieties of baby bananas commonly seen in U.S. are finger bananas (a.k.a. lady fingers) and manzanos (a.k.a. apple bananas. Manzanos become black when ripe. Tannins are overwhelming when cooked unripe as a mellow-yellow.
BANANA (Gluay) three varieties are available in Thailand: Horm, Nam Wah, and Khai.
Green, Zliza. 2000September 20. Making the most of bananas. Corvallis Gazette-Times. pp. C4.
Excerpts The banana originated in Southeast Asia,
where early wild bananas were known as monkey bananas. Its latin name,"Musa
sapientia, commemorates the legend that wise men would sit in the
shade of the banana tree and eat its fruit.
Alexander the Great's army came across the banana in India, where it had been known for several thousand years. The banana reached China about A.D. 200. Because of climate, it was grown only in the south and until very recently was considered a rare exotic fruit in the north of China.
A Spanish missionary took banana roots from the Canary Islands to the Western Hemisphere in 1516. The new plant spread so quickly through latin America that some early writers were convinced that it had existed in South America among the Incas. During the 19th century, bananas began to be sent by ship from the Canaries to Europe and from Cuba to the United States. High shipping costs made the fruit an expensive luxury.
This began to change in 1879s, when two American entrepreneurs began to ship bananas from the Caribbean to New Orleans, Boston and New York. In 1899 they formed the United Fruit Co., which had and still has great influence in Central American and the Caribbean.
Five large companies account for more than 80 percent of the world banana trade: Chiquita (USA), Dole (USA), Fyffes (Ireland), Del Monte (Chile) and Noboa (Ecuador).
The banana plant is not truly a tree, even though it may reach heights
of 25 feet or more with leaves ranging from six to eight feet long
and up to two feet wide. The bananas grow in large bunches or"hands"
of bananas, which are formed from the double rows of flowers on each
plant.
When buying bananas, choose plump, evenly colored, yellow bananas flecked
with tiny brown specks (a sign of ripeness). When buying plantains,
buy them at any stage from green to black, but always choose plump,
unshriveled bananas without mush spots.
Two varieties of baby bananas commonly seen in U.S. are finger bananas (a.k.a. lady fingers) and manzanos (a.k.a. apple bananas. Manzanos become black when ripe. Tannins are overwhelming when cooked unripe as a mellow-yellow.
All curcurbits, including squash and pumpkins, are technically berries.
Like grapes, tomatoes, bananas and blueberries, curcurbits have a sturdy
outer skins that house soft inner flesh and seeds.
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
MUSA SAPIENTUM, ADAM'S FIG, BANANA, PLANTAIN
in general, says Humboldt, the musa, known by every people in the Torrid Zone, though hitherto never found in a wild state, has as great a variety of fruit as the apple or pear. The names "plantain" and "banana" are very discriminately applied, but the term plantain is usually restricted to the larger plants whose fruits are eaten cooked, while the term banana is given to sorts whose fruits are eaten raw. The plantain, says Forster, varies almost ad infinitum, like our apple. At Tongatabu, says Captain Cook, they have 15 sorts of plantain. In Tenasserim, says Simmonds, there are 20 varieties, in Ceylon 10 and in Burma 30. The Dacca plantain is 9 inches long. In Madagascar, the plantains are as large as a man's forearm. In the mountains of the Philippines, a single bunch is said to be a load for a man. The banana is cultivated in mroe varieties in India than is the plantain, says Roxburgh. The plantain is abundant in africa, according to Burton and other African travelers. In Peru, according to Herndon and according to Burton and other African travelers. In Peru, according to Herndon and others, it abounds. One of the dainties of the Mosquito Indians, says Bancroft, is bisbire, the name given to plantains kept in leaves till putrid; it is eaten boiled. The plantain is unquestionably of ancient culture, for one of the Mohammedan traditions is that the leaves used for girdles by Adam and Eve were plantain leaves. Plantains with fruit from 10 to 12 inches long were grown in Louisiana in 1855 and probably earlier. The flesh was eaten roasted, fried or boiled.
It seems probable that the plantain, or banana, was cultivated in South America before the discovery by Columbus. It seems indigenous to the hot regions of the Old World and the New, or at any rate to have been present in the New World before the discovery by Columbus, as banana leaves are found in the huacas, or Peruvian tombs,anterior to the Conquest. Bancroft says the Mexicans offered the "fat banana" at the shrine of the goodess Centeotl. Roxburgh found bananas growing wild on the coast of Coromandel. Hooker saw two species wild in the Himalayas. Rumphius and Blanco saw them in the Philippines. Finlayson found them in the small island of Pulo-ubi near Siam. Cook and others saw them in Tahiti, and Humboldt mentions the occasional occurrence of wild bananas in the forests of South America. Although the cultivated varieties of banana and plantain are usually seedless, yet some wild species produce seeds, and varieties of the cultivated form occasionally bear seeds. Thus,k on the coast of Para, near the Gulf of Triste, and near Cumana,according to Humboldt, there are sorts with seeds; as there are at manila, according to Meyen; and in Central Africa, according to Burton. The fruit of these is usually of poor quality. In Calcutta, 1503-08, Varthema mentions 3 kinds of bananas. Firminger, at the present time names 7 varieties, and Ellis, not fewer than 30 varieties of bananas are cultivated by the natives. In the Fiji Islands, some 9 varieties are in cultivation according to Wilkes. In Cercado, on the Amazon, Castelanu says there is an enormous number of varieties of bananas. In Central Africa, Grant names 6 varieties. Ten varieties are given for Ceylon and 30 for Burma.
The garden of Adam in Seyllan (Ceylon), says Morignolli, about 1350, contains plantain trees which the natives call figs: "but the plantain has more the character of a garden plant than of a tree. At first they are not good to eat, but after they have been kept a while in the hosue they ripen of themselves and are then of an excellent odor and still better taste, and they are about the length of the longest of one's fingers." In Calicut, 1503-08, Varthema describes three sorts: "The first sort is called cianchapalon; these are very restorative things to eat. Their color is somewhat yellow, and the bark is very thin. The second sort is called cadelapalon, and they are much superior to the others. The third sort are bitter." the head of the flowers of the variety known as kuntela, before the sheath in which they are enclosed expands, is often cut off, being esteemed a most delicate vegetable.
In the Malay Archipelago, says Wallace, many species occur wild in the forests and some produce edible fruits. In 1591, at the Nicobar Islands, near Sumatra, the plantain was seen by May. At Batavia, in 1770, Captain Cook found innumerable sorts but only three were good eating, although others were used for cooking. In New Guinea, in 1770, he found plantains flourishing in a state of the highest perfection. le Maire, 1616, says this fruit is called tachouner. In New Holland Captain Cook found the plantain tree bearing a very small fruit, the pulp well-tasted, but full of seeds, and in another place said to be so full of stones as scarcely to be edible. Both the banana and plantain are now cultivated in Australia in many varieties.
In Polynesia, Mendana, in 1595, mentions "very fine plantains" at Mendana islands and elsewhere. In 1606, de Quiros saw plantains as appears from his memorial to the King of Spain. In 1588, Cavendish had "plantains" brought out in boats to his ships and in 1625 Prince Maurice of Nassau mentions bananas as brought to his ships. Easter Island, when discovered in 1722, had "plantains." In 1778, Captain Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands and found there the banana, and Wilkes, in 1840, says banana and plantains are abundant. The Fiji Islands were discovered by Tasman in 1643, and they were visited by D'Urville in 1827, although there had been intervening arrivals of Europeans. In 1840 Wilkes found there five or six varieties of banana with insipid fruit and three varieties of plantain cultivated to a great extent, as also the wild species of Tahiti and Samoa. Tahiti was discovered by Wallis in 1767 and visited by Bougainville in 1768, and by Cook in 1769. In 1777 Captain Cook speaks of the plantain as being cultivated there and also of wild plantains in the mountains. Ellis says the plantain and banana are indigenous and also cultivated in the native gardens. When Captain Cook discovered Wateroo Island, he found plantains and he mentions them at Atooi, the Annamooka Islands.
The banana is mentioned by Ramusio, 1563-74, as being found in Africa. At the island of St. Thomas, off the coast of Guinea, he says "they have also began to plant that herb, which in one year grows to the height of a tree. It produces fruit like the figs called muse in Alexandria, and it is called abellana in this island." In 1593, Sir Richard Hawkins says "the plantain is a tree found in most parts of Afrique and America," and describes the fruit as having many varieties: "some great, some lesser, some round, some square, some trinagle, most ordinarily of a spanne long" and "no conserve is better, nor of a more pleasing taste." St. John, in his Adventures in the Libyan Desert, mentions the banan as growing in some of the vballeys and in the osais of Siwah. Grant found the plantain the stape food of the countries one degree on either side of the equator. There are half a dozen varieties, he says, the boiling, baking, drying, fruit and wine-making sorts. The fruit dried, from Ugigi, is like a Normandy pippin; a variety when green ande boiled is an excellent vegetable, while another yields a wine resembling hock in flavor. Long says, in Uganda, this fruit grows wild in the greatest luxuriance. The tree is very large and the watery matter contained in the stock serves the natives of Uganda for water, when they cannot procure it elsewhere. The banan is scarcely ever eaten in the ripe state, save by the females, who extract from it an unfermented and delicious liquor. Burton says, in tcertain parts about Lake Tanganyika, the banana is the staff of life and is apparently an aboriginal of these latitutdes. In the hilly countries, there are said to be about a dozen aboriginal of these latitudes. In the hilly countries, there are said to be about a dozen varieties and a single bunch forms a load for a man. It is found on the islands and on the coast of Zanzibar and rarely in the mountains of Usagara. The best fruit is that grown by the Arabs at Unyamyembe, but this is a poor specimen, coarse and insipid, stringy and full of seeds. Upon the Tanganyika lake, there is a variety larger than the horse-plantain of India, of which the skin is brick-reddish, in places inclined to a rusty brown, the pulp a dull yellow and contains black seeds. The flavor is harsh, strong and drug-like.
In 1526, Thomas Nicols, writing of the "plantano" of the Canary islands, says it "is like a cucumber and when it is ripe it is blacke and in eating more delicate than any conserve.
MUSA MACULATA, BANANA
is a plant of the Mauritius Islands. The fruit is very spicy and of excellent flavor. This is a tender banana not profitable for cultivation above south Florida.
MUSA ROSACEA, BANANA
is a plant of tropical Asia. This is the vai of Cook, the fahie of Wilkes, the fae of the natives. It was seen by Wilkes in groves in Tahiti, the fruit borne on an upright spike, of the shape of the banana but twice as large and of a deep golden hue, with pulp of a dark orange color. It is destitute of seeds, of high flavor and greatly esteemed by the natives. On the Fiji Islands, it is found cultivated. The fruit is eaten either roasted or boiled. Ellis says there are nearly 20 kinds of wild bananas, very large and serviceable, in the mountains of Tahiti. In Inida, says Firminger, this species is called ram kela and, when in good condition, is a remarkably fine fruit. The fruit is about seven inches long and rather thin, at first of a very dark red, but ripening to a yellowish-red.
Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.
Fruit of genus Musa; but since the cultivated kinds are sterile hybrid forms, they cannot be given exact species names.
Dessert bananas have a high sugar content (17-19%) and are eaten raw.
Analysis per 100g: 1 g protein, 0.3g fat, 27g carbohydrate, 116 kcal (0.49MJ), 0.5 mg Fe, 30 ug vitamin A, 0.05 mg vitamin B1, 0.05 mg vitamin B2, 0.7 mg nicotinic acid, 10 mg vitamin C. Sodium content is low, 1.2 mg per 100g, so used in low-sodium diets.
Excerpts from Passmore, Jacki. 1991. The Encyclopedia of Asian Food and Cooking. Hearst Books, New York.
BANANA, MUSA PARADISIACA, KELA, PISANG, PISANG RAJA, PISANG SUSU, PISANG KARI, PISANG KEPOK, SABA, SAGING, PUSO NO SAGING, KLUAY, CHUOI
From the Musaceae family, the cultivated banana is a sterile hybrid which grows from a rhizome. It can grow to 30 ft (9 m) high. Many parts of the banana are used in cooking. The sweet banana is eaten ripe as a fruit and used green as a vegetable. Battered, fried or baked in their skins over hot coals, bananas are a popular Asian snack, while banana cooked with rice flour dough or glutinous rice and served with coconut cream is one of the most popular dessert combinations in many parts of Southeast Asia. The plantain banana has a lower sugar content and is used as a vegetable.
See also
Banana Flowers
Banana Heart
Banana Leaves
Banana Shootss
Nutrient Content
Compiled for Food Resource http://food.oregonstate.edu