I haven't posted anything for Anecdote Monday for awhile, mainly because I have had no time to look up the material to post. But today, there is no need to look for material elsewhere; this is a true story.
Hubby and I had a Thanksgiving guest. We had a simple but traditional Thanksgiving meal, and we had some bananas sitting on the kitchen counter for good measure.
One morning, we woke up after our guest, only to hear her say:
"You know, those bananas you bought? Those are not fruit, they are vegetables."
Hubby and I looked at each other, puzzled, and asked her how that is possible.
"Bananas can be both a fruit and a vegetable. The kind you got needs to be cooked, therefore it is a vegetable."
I finally recall that the bananas were freshly purchased and were quite green when we got them. I tell her they are just not ripe enough. Our guest brings a banana that she tried to pry open as proof:
"See, you cannot even open them. You have to cook them. They are vegetables."
Rolling in laughter at this point, we tell her she has to wait till they are ripe to eat them. It took several more days to convince her that bananas are, in fact, fruit.
The perverse incentives of academia
6 years ago
4 comments:
Actually people in many countries eat them as a vegetable (in the unripened form; the greener the better) where they have to be boiled.
They are mainly eaten in savory dished with meat or fish and are quite delicious, and when blended can be boiled with milk to make a hot porridge.
Yeah, I think she must have thought they were plantains (sooooooo good). But it's still a good story!
Technically, bananas are berries. :) And I wonder if your friend was thinking of plantains (which I guess are also berries)?
I heard a show once about Irish immigrants, and one woman confessed that when she first got to America, she stole a banana (an exotic delicacy) and then ate it very quickly both to avoid getting caught and to mollify her conscience. In eating the unfamiliar fruit, she consumed the whole thing - peel and all - and was sick for days, which she attributed to guilt! In context, it was a very cute story.
MTS - this person is from one of the northern countries; no way bananas grow there! It would be interesting to try the banana porridge; I will have to try to find a recipe for the next time I get extra green bananas!
Cath - so they are called plantains? I have asked her where she was getting her story, and it turns out she just assumed that whatever needed to be cooked to be eaten = vegetables.
EGF - berries? Really? And no, my guest has never had plantains. In fact, she is probably closer to your Irish woman - she hadn't tried bananas until well into her adulthood. I guess the bananas still haven't quite lost their exotic nature :)
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