Giant Banana

 

The number of banana varieties that are out in the world is pretty amazing. Most westerners know one or two types. Occasionally you might see some odd banana at a grocery store that might be really small or maybe even red. For the most part people in the west have a fear of different bananas, that comes mostly from people suggesting that some bananas need to be cooked before they are eaten. As far as I know, there are no bananas that will do you harm if you don’t cook them, but they just taste pretty yucky and are often pretty hard (almost like an apple).

While living in Asia for the last few years, I’ve decided to expand my banana eating experiences and gone out on a limb to taste a pretty good varieties of them. I’ll agree that there are some that I’ve tasted that fit into the description of hard and probably better cooked. There have also been some pretty amazing discoveries as well. For example, if you come across some red bananas, you can eat them but they’re kind of dense, however using them to bake banana bread is a great idea.

Unlike most of my eating habits, my exploration into bananas has remained mostly offline. I don’t share my banana discoveries with the public, that was until today. At a grocery store in Kuala Lumpur, Allison came across what we can only describe as the biggest banana we’ve ever seen. The length is about 12 inches, and that’s the edible part. I don’t know how to describe this banana except to say that it’s obscenely huge.

We were a little nervous about buying it because there’s one fundamental problem, it’s huge. If it’s horrible then we have a lot of banana to eat. Even if it’s good, that’s still way too much banana for anyone to consume. Although we agreed to share one banana between the two of us, it was going to be a full meal.

The other unfortunate part is that this banana is that it wasn’t that great. Even though it appeared to be fairly ripe, it still tasted kind of green. I’m wondering if it even ripens entirely, or if it’s one of those cooking bananas. It wasn’t as green tasting as some other bananas I’ve had and it was softer then some, but it was still pretty rough to get through. As you can imagine, it was even more difficult to get through because it was so huge.

While I did not really enjoy this banana, I’m continuing to enjoy my banana tasting challenge. If anyone knows what kind of banana this is, please let me know so I can add it to my list of bananas I don’t really care for.