Que, Banana?

A couple plus weeks ago, I harvested a bunch of bananas, "saguing na saba," from the backyard tree.

The individual bananas were of varying stages of ripeness; some were ready for the eating, some were still greenish. And then there were whitish stuff on some.

So I soaked the big bunch into a basin-full of water to cleanse it. Then I boiled the ripe ones which turned out to be sweet. Few days after, more bananas ripened, but the rest I had to throw out.

Then sis Jo from QC gave the household a humongous "langka" fruit, one of the few hanging from her front yard. Henz and his Mom did the gruesome peeling of the sticky fruit, but were dismayed to discover that it was already spoiled. Toyz was disheartened; she had been "eyeing" the fruit for weeks, and planning on making it a "postre." Now, she's nagging sis for the one remaining "langka" from the tree.

Lesson learned from these two experiences is to harvest the fruit in a timely manner; dapat eksakto sa oras.

I love "saguing na saba" - boiled, minatamis or sweetened, as "turon" (banana fritters), banana-cued, and especially fried.

Breakfast is the best time for fried bananas, dipped in sugar. Morning merienda is the best time for boiled bananas, afternoon snack is the best time for "turon" and banana cue, and after dinner is the best time for "sweetened" bananas, taken as dessert.



When my sis and I were small and living with our aunt, we had playmates, the tenants' kids, who plied the neighbourhood hawking banana cues. They were hired "manlalako," or street sellers.

Behind our aunt's back, we went with these kids, and we even crossed the big street into the other side of town, the so-called slum area, to peddle the sticked-bananas. Oh, those were the fun days, and me and my sis didn't even get a cent nor a free banana cue for doing this.

"Saguing na saba" comes from the Plantain banana family. In Canada and the U.S., Pinoys who want to have a "turon" or fried bananas, would use the Plantain variety, the elongated ones, popular also in Jamaica. But in Washington State, "saguing na saba" as we know it in the Philippines, is commonly available in groceries.



These days, I have enough potassium supply, thanks to the "saguing na saba"/bananas.