Recently, I was watching a cookery show. A famous master chef was telling the viewers about adding a dressing to a salad platter. This left me wondering how many of these cookery shows take up a banana stem or a banana flower as their prime ingredient for a dish?
In this world of potato lovers, I have two strange children who love anything banana. One has banana stem as her all-time favourite vegetable, while the other will pledge anything under the sun for his banana flower curry!
I do not really know when my own love for anything banana started. Yes, I don’t just mean the fruits. I seem to love anything connected to a banana plant? Growing up in a coastal town in Kerala, I developed a penchant for bananas at a very young age. We come across so many varieties of banana in Kerala. The feasts in Kerala are never complete without the various hues of nendran (a variety of banana) chips or fritters made out of the half-ripe bananas, or the pazhapayasam. There is a saying that if you have a banana plant and a coconut tree in your house, you never have to worry about sudden visitors. Yes, indeed these two bountiful trees give so much to fill any empty stomach!
