A fruit of the wise: know the history of the banana

A fruit of the wise: know the history of the banana.

It is the third fruit world's most popular. It is expensive and scarce one hundred years ago have grown into a common product

(Ser.! / Flickr)

Madrid (EFE). There are plenty of foods that Europeans automatically identified as "originating in America" ​​and, in fact, were the New World from the Old, yes, thrived in their new home beautifully. This applies, among other things, the bananas . Or bananas, or bananas ...

A Spanish, of course, does not think in America when he eats bananas. Think of the Canary Islands. For northern Europeans, the banana comes from the Antilles and Central America, with some input from West Africa. But the truth is that bananas are not native to America, although this view has been championed by such illustrious companies as Alejandro de Humboldt.

 

FOOD WISE
By all indications, this fruit , like many others, is originally from India, where she was known as the fruit of the wise. From there he was emigrating to the West. It is believed that the yogis and holy men ate green bananas Indians, as did a long time Christian hermits and monks of Abyssinia.

The banana was transplanted to the Spanish, from the Canary Islands in 1516 by Spanish friar Tomas de Berlanga. Shortly after arriving in Mexico, where it took root very well. At the same time, the cultured Portuguese in Brazil, where they acquired their name from bananas, which seems to come from a language spoken by some of the first African slaves arrived on Brazilian soil, originating in an area of ​​the Gulf of Guinea.

 

Popular and nutritious
Bananas are the third most popular fruit in the world. It is expensive and scarce one hundred years ago have grown into a common product. Its main feature is its high sugar content, which can reach 20%. There are many varieties of bananas, no significant differences between them from a nutritional point of view. All are good sources of vitamin C, carotene and riboflavin.

 

The popularization of bananas have names. The American Lorenzo Dow Baker chartered a schooner in 1870, to Jamaica. Loaded bananas and coconuts and returned to New Jersey. The business did well and in 1885 founded the Boston Fruit Company. Shortly after he realized that the big money was in total control, planting, cultivating, harvesting and transport bananas.

 

In 1899 he teamed up with Minor Keith, who had built a railroad in Panama and they founded the United Fruit Company, which means the company, for better and for worse, in Central America, it is well known.

In Spain, until nothing more bananas did not know that those who call it "dessert." A Spanish in America, is confused with the terminology of the various types of banana, which for some years, as Latin American immigration, are now available in markets and good greengrocers, or those working American genera.

So far, talk of bananas, plantains or was talking about things unknown: only sweet banana, Canary Islands, to take oil or any dessert recipe, greedy, given the high sugar content of bananas, all content enhance these recipes.

 

For example, the most classic and simplest of all: the bananas flambe. We will use four bananas sweet . The pelaremos and jumping in a frying pan with a little butter.

Then sprinkle generously with brown sugar and finally, sprinkle with a glass of dark rum, warm and sweet. Only at the time of bringing to the table will light the alcohol on fire reaching to the diners. Not only will like: You may even become wiser.