Going bananas over bananas




Mar 5, '11 12:32 AM
     Last February 28, I had lakatan banana in fresh fruit salad for breakfast. For morning snacks, I had one boiled saging na saba. Before lunch, I had a little latundan banana in our room ( I don't know why. Maybe I just felt guilty about the growing stash of uneaten bananas in our room!)  For merienda, I had 2 pieces of bananacue and followed later by one leftover boiled saba. That would be roughly 6 pieces for someone who isn't even crazy about bananasI Dessert for dinner was... you guessed it, bananas! Suko na ako!!!

      But whatever the nuns serve, no matter what or how much, you seem compelled to eat them. Like I was transported back to the days I was a half-intern in St.Joseph's College in my elementary years. Then, you risked getting an invitation to visit Purgatory if you as much left a crumb on your plate!

      So after a a few days of (forced) banana bingeing, I realized that there were so many variety of banana that were available to us and that I actually liked some of them. The saba would probably be first in line, considering the many ways I have enjoyed them: pritong saging (sliced horizontally & fried),bananacue (fried whole with brown sugar & then skewered like a barbeque), turon (sliced, put inside spring roll wrappers and then fried with brown sugar, sometimes with jackfruit slivers), maruya (sliced like coins, put in batter and then fried and then when done, sprinkled with white sugar) , boiled or steamed, baked with panocha (block of raw sugar) in an earthenware pot , minatamis na saging (cooked in brown sugar syrup), inihaw (grilled over charcoal, with or without the banana skin), and my all-time childhood favorite,  nilupak (semi-ripe banana combined with fresh, shredded coconut, margarine and brown sugar and then pound together into a yummy mass using a big mortar and pestle). Whew, I've never felt so blessed!

       To my dear friends and high school classmates who live abroad and shared in my FB account that they long for Philippine bananas, I have only one thing to say .... Eat your puso ng saging (banana heart) out, guys! Hehehehe!

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