Different parts of the world use the banana in different ways to come up with mouth watering banana delicacies. There are synonymous recipes that feature specific cultures but generally, it is agreeable all over that bananas produce very unique tastes. The preparation of bananas can only equal that of potatoes, which many different cultures across the globe devise different ways of cooking them thanks to their resourcefulness.
Lets start with the common but outstanding cuisines synonymous with known cultures. The Banana Split, is a classic American Dessert which date back to the 1900s. Its first appearance was in Pennsylvania where it constituted a split of banana, few scoops of ice cream, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce and Americas traditional maraschino cherry spread on top.
Then if we go south, way south so south America – Brazil we will find another recipe using bananas. They mash them together with some brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger and the cook this mix for a long time. The sugar melts, everything melts together and becomes thick. They later leave it to cool down and they make delicious rolls out of it.
Another popular banana recipe is the banana fritters of the Caribbean. The fritters consist of chunks of bananas dipped in flour, then dipped into rich batter. They are then flavored with rum. Next, they are deep fried in hot oil until they turn golden and finally sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Next country that has some banana recipes to share and is big on bananas is India. They have quite a few recipes that include bananas so lets mention a few of them. I am sure that you have heard of Lassi, a traditional Indian drink. Of course there is a banana version of it that is called Sweet banana lassi and is made out of (no surprise) bananas and yogurt. Then there is a dessert called Panchamrutham that is made out of bananas, spices and honey and plenty of other recipes.
I am sure that the most widespread use of bananas in cuisine comes from the countries that actually grow bananas. There they have hundreds of recipes that also use bananas. These recipes cover everything from salads to soups to vegetable stews. One of the more known recipes are also different curry dishes that have bananas in them. These are very popular in countries like Philippines, Malaysia or Thailand.
So you can see that bananas are not only used as a quick snack between tennis breaks. And we are not finished yet – in East Africa bananas are used for brewing beer! Another interesting fact is also that only around 80% of banana recipes use the banana fruit. Others use other parts of the banana tree like leaves. I would like to end this walk through the world of banana recipes with one more point – bananas are not only a very useful thing in cooking but they are also nutritionally rich. So whether it is beer of banana split – they are yummy.
Ben Cook also puts bananas in recipes on his banana bread website. If you are looking for banana bread recipes, his website is the right right place to find them. You can find many twists to the basic recipe like this healthy banana bread recipes and many others.
