My sister Robin was probably one of the first to attempt growing bananas on a mountain overlooking Vancouver about 20 years ago. She managed to find some viable seed and nurtured the reluctant plant determinedly. She had a special trolley made for its pot, so she could wheel it inside as soon as the weather cooled. It was coddled with special fertilisers, misted, talked to and warmed with Grow Lights. It eventually grew to be about a metre tall and people would come from miles around to gaze at this exotic specimen. Robin still grows bananas in a small way, but has bowed to the cruel reality that Canada’s west coast is not within the plant’s comfort zone. Still, she can’t quite give them up.
In Bali, bananas are like weeds in the garden. When I built my house, the workers felled dozens of banana plants 8 metres high and with a diameter of up to 45 centimetres. The long stems lay tumbled about the site until the Balinese chopped them up and carried them home to feed the pigs. Once sliced, the stalks are just concentric rings of water and cellulose. A child could cut down the tallest banana plant with a bread knife.
After the house was built, the earth was bare in the front where the garden was to be planted. But the dirt would start to crack here and there as if some behemoth deep beneath was struggling to escape. Finally a thick finger of green would break through and I’d dig up the monster roots and transplant them carefully. There were hundreds in the garden, but I couldn’t wantonly kill a banana plant when Robin was wrapping hers in sweaters. Now 18 months later, I still have enough bananas. Like papayas, they don’t wait for an invitation to start growing, and they’re not a bit shy.
The banana is the world’s largest herb. Each stalk bears a rude-looking flower which transforms into a long hand of fruit, then dies after the fruit ripens. It probably originated in Indonesia or Malaysia and was carried by early traders to every part of the tropical world. Major population centres in Africa are thought to have sprung up where bananas grew well. In Rwanda and Burundi, banana beer is a staple drink, fermented in a calabash; perhaps this is the origin of the term ‘going bananas’. ‘Banan’ is the Arabic word for finger, but bananas can range from a few inches to half a metre in length, and from yellow through to pink and bronze in colour.
There are scores of varieties in existence. I only have about five so far, but my collection is growing. I saw a new variety behind a friend’s house last week, and am plotting to dig up a bit when no one is looking. The flowers are as pink as a lotus, maturing into small bronze bananas that explode open when ripe. The white underside of the skins frames the fruit like a flower, and the banana itself, thickly studded with seeds, is the stamen. Amazing.
Bananas are attractively packaged, nutritious and easy to eat. Even small babies can digest them. A shipwrecked sailor once lived exclusively on bananas for a month and was in fine physical condition when rescued, though terribly bored with his diet.
Then there’s the story of the South African farmer who habitually ate four pounds of bananas a day steeped in whiskey, and was still working at age 89. But what kind of bananas were they? How ripe? And who’s to say it wasn’t the marinade? My gran lived to be 95 and her whiskey had no bananas in it.
Of course medical research is getting into the act now. Bananas are good for us, an excellent source of vitamin B6, magnesium and potassium and lacking the tasty but wicked trio of fat, sodium and cholesterol. No, wait, bananas are bad for us; they carry the bacteria that causes flesh-eating disease. No, sorry, that was a vicious rumour to undermine the Costa Rican economy. Bananas are good for us again, containing the natural anti-depressants norepinephrine and serotonin, though not in quantities that will ever popularize the fruit as a recreational substance. In my misspent youth, there was an urban legend that smoking dried banana skins might be interesting, but it turned out to be another rumour.
Rumours aside, recent studies have identified natural compounds in bananas which act in a manner similar to anti-hypertensive drugs. As few as two ripe bananas a day may reduce high blood pressure by 10%. Five could lower blood pressure by half of what drugs can, with none of the scary side affects. The magic ingredient is potassium, with each banana containing about 4500 mg. Another study of 5,600 people over the age of 65 found that those with the lowest intake of potassium were 50% more likely to have a stroke. So start peeling.
Bananas used to be a treat in Northern climes before growers figured out how to ship them. Now the British get through 7 billion a year. But it’s still a thrill for a Canadian to walk out in the garden and pick a banana for breakfast. Especially in January.
