Bananas

I've come back from a week in the Lakes with some manky bananas in my rucksack. There are only two options for manky bananas: 1) the bin or 2) banana loaf. I don't like wasting food and I do like cake, so I ticked option 2.

While I was in the Lakes eating bananas, I noticed Fitz had a curious way of eating them. He peels the whole banana, throws away the skin, and then eats the fruit. Surely not even monkeys do this?

I decided to share this eccentricity with friends over curry at the weekend (an excellent South Indian meal at Rasa, I was thrilled when they opened in Newcastle) and was met with blank stares. It turns out that half of my friends, whom I'd previously thought were normal people, choose not to use the handy fruit-in-its-own-holding-device as Nature surely intends, but instead peel the whole fruit. One friend commented "the skin might flip over and put banana on my hand - ew!" But surely you're going to get more banana on your hand if you hold the entire fruit naked? And if you're an A&E consultant, is this really the most minging thing you might get on your hand?  

I was reminded of a piece of gossip about a chap at college. "So posh", whispered a friend, "that when someone visited him in his room, he was sitting on his own eating a banana ON A PLATE WITH A FORK". This upper class banana method is demonstrated here at 2.25 by my future husband Rowan Atkinson.

Anyway, back to the manky ones. I used to make a banana loaf with walnuts but after a colleague once asked for a nut-free banana cake, I've become very fond of the Hummingbird recipe with ginger and cinnamon. It's lovely on its own but can you jazz it up too.

For instance, if you've just come back from holiday and realised you've gained another half stone, why not slather a load of chocolate buttercream on top? Or if you've come back from holiday to find mammy has cleaned your flat, why not make two banana loaves and send her one as a thank you?

Post script: my aunt Kate has alerted me to a third option for manky bananas: " bananas freeze well in their skins, and can be hauled out and used later, thus eliminating the 'have to do something straight away' pressure. Canadian freezers tend to be full of disgusting looking, blackened bananas , which when thawed, slip out of the skin easily and work just as well." I'll certainly be giving this a go.


Lastly, William has asked if I can show everyone a photo of him doing his impression of a banana. He's a funny one.