Description
The banana has a thick signature yellow peel when perfectly ripe, encasing an ivory cream colored, semi-starchy flesh. Depending on its age, the flavor and aromatics can vary from nuances of lemon custard to creme brulee. The banana plant is not a tree, but the world's largest herb. The fruit itself is botanically a berry.
Bananas are available year-round.
The banana is the most important fruit within the global culinary landscape. Although not necessarily superior in flavor or production quality, the common banana commercially sold is known as the Cavendish banana. Due to the demise of a now-extinct variety, the Gros Michel, or "Big Mike," in the late 1960's, the Cavendish has dominated the market since the 1970's. The banana has a highly regarded culinary value as it is one of the world's most accessible and ideal foods: it is nutritious, convenient, affordable and always growing. It also turns out that each Cavendish banana growing throughout the world is a direct clone of one another, identical twins to the first one discovered in Southeast Asia, in shape, size and flavor.
Bananas are well known for their potassium rich flesh. Bananas also full of other nutrient health boosters including vitamin B, C, fiber, and magnesium. They are more calorie dense than most other fruits, making them an extremely efficient and sustainable small meal. Bananas are considered an excellent source of the amino acid tryptophan as well as vitamin B6, which in conjunction helps the body produce serotonin in the brain.
