Day 98: banana skins
I apologise in advance for the potential illegibility of the following paragraphs. I have my vaccine today and my anxieties are making me a little confused; the brain fog is about the thickness of pea soup and I can’t concentrate for more than one blinking second (which is about half the time of my usual average on a good day!).
I’m still trying to get to grips with the fact I ate and thoroughly enjoyed a (beyond heavenly) chocolate and banana pudding at the weekend, let alone that I’m now sitting down to write about eating the skins kept from the bananas I used to make said pudding.
Again, as I mentioned in my previous post, I see no point in taking to Twitter, or any platform for that matter, to voice an opinion about a dislike of something that someone has made (something they enjoy), just to say that you don’t like the look of it. It’s rude. Keep it to yourself. Or, at the very least, bring something else to the table. Create dialogue. Engage! You don’t have to like it. But if you can’t be civil then why say anything at all? Puke emojis, gifs of repulse; how is the original poster/author/cook supposed to react to responses like that to their posts?
While I was, and still am, somewhat humorously baffled at the thought of eating banana peels, I seriously did enjoy them. I reckon this bafflement comes from a 50:50 split between the awakening from discovering that banana peels were in fact edible - via Nigella’s Cook Eat Repeat - and that I, Mr Banana Hater, actually enjoyed them! It’s true they don’t taste much like bananas, but it’s a rather surreal feeling when you go from eating zero bananas in your recent adult life to eating two, skins included(!), in 24 hours.
Nigella’s Banana Skin and Cauliflower Curry
Once you’ve soaked the banana skins in water from a recently boiled kettle, turmeric and salt, and left to cool, it’s really up to you how you prepare the peels going forward. I opted for a combo of small bitesize pieces and strips resembling the Klingon delicacy Gagh (analogy courtesy of Nigella!). Great for those with wild imaginations; I took great joy in pretending I had the stomach to each such a thing.
A very easy curry to make, and seriously good-tasting. We enjoyed it with flatbreads, Nigella’s Coriander and Jalapeno Salsa (to which I added a cooling spoonful of plain yoghurt) and - a newfound favourite - Mr Vikki’s Banana and Habanero chutney/relish/sauce.
Flavour musings
Quite the marvel! They don’t contribute much in flavour - although I could definitely pick out floral notes (that decreased in potency the longer they spent simmering in the sauce: I tasted them at several points throughout their cooking time) - but the texture is actually quite lush; in addition, they soak up all of those wonderful flavours from the spices - becoming sensationally textured morsels of flavour. I think the marvelling lies in the fact that this is not what you might be expecting. If I cooked this for you and told you the brown bits were aubergine skins, you’d probably not know I was lying. Unless, of course, my acting skills were off and you saw straight through my attempts at keeping a smirk at bay.
It’s a mind over matter thing here. Even if you don’t like bananas, and trust me I’m no fan of them, I don’t think you’d know. It’s just a real-good way to avoid waste, add texture, and - according to a little research - introduce some extra Vitamin B16 and B6 into your diet! If you do concentrate you may taste light floral notes - I did and found it a most enjoyable quality. Also, I took great satisfaction in knowing I’d made the most out of something I would have otherwise thrown away - something that tasted really good, too!
Two firsts in 24hrs: my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and my first time eating banana skins. Both experiences really quite surreal, and both of which I am very grateful for.
