How people use bananas in recipes all over the world

If you look across the world you will find many uses of bananas in cooking. There are lots and lots of different recipes containing bananas, different cultures use them in very unique ways. If you think of it you can kind of compare bananas to potatoes when it comes to different ways op preparing them across different cultures.

Lets start with the common but outstanding cuisines synonymous with known cultures. The Banana Split, is a classic American Dessert which date back to the 1900s. Its first appearance was in Pennsylvania where it constituted a split of banana, few scoops of ice cream, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce and Americas traditional maraschino cherry spread on top.

In Brazil, you are sure to find a dessert of bananas mashed in with brown sugar, cinnamon or cloves and grated ginger. The mix up is brought to cook slowly over low heat as it thickens. It is left to cool then molded into a roll, sliced and then served.

Another popular banana recipe is the banana fritters of the Caribbean. The fritters consist of chunks of bananas dipped in flour, then dipped into rich batter. They are then flavored with rum. Next, they are deep fried in hot oil until they turn golden and finally sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Now we are moving east. In India there are many recipes that include bananas. For instance Panchamrutham. Here the bananas are covered with spice and honey. Bananas are also used in a drink called Lassi that is a very well known beverage in India and abroad. A Lassi that includes bananas is called Sweet banana lassi and is made out of bananas and yogurt.

Next we are going into some of the countries that are also known for growing bananas. It is understandable that these countries have plenty of recipes that include bananas. Lets take a look at a few recipes from Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. They use bananas in a wide range of recipes from adding them to salads, using them in curry dishes (this is very common) or adding them to different food including vegetables. Bananas go great with stews and meat.

So you can see that bananas are not only used as a quick snack between tennis breaks. And we are not finished yet – in East Africa bananas are used for brewing beer! Another interesting fact is also that only around 80% of banana recipes use the banana fruit. Others use other parts of the banana tree like leaves. I would like to end this walk through the world of banana recipes with one more point – bananas are not only a very useful thing in cooking but they are also nutritionally rich. So whether it is beer of banana split – they are yummy.

Ben Cook also uses bananas in recipes on his banana bread site. If you want to find banana bread recipes, his site is the right place to look. You can find many twists to the usual recipe like this healthy banana bread recipes and many others.