Well, as you know, I consume prodigious quantities of Bananas. I’ve already waxed rhapsodic over the wondrous Williams Banana (a type of Cavendish) — trees of which we, unfortunately, do not have here at the farm; meaning that my supplies must come from the twice-weekly Hilo Farmers’ Market.
We do have, here at the farm; Apple Bananas, Plantains, Popo Ulus (AKA Hawaiian Plantains), and small numbers of Lady Fingers.
Took me a while to get into the Apples, which are a not as sweet as the Cavendish, but they’ve certainly grown on me. I taste a hint of cream cheese (but take this with a grain of salt: I also think that Tuscan Cantaloupes have a cream taste to them).
Plantains are, primarily, cooking bananas. Apparently they taste great raw, if you let them get very ripe — as in, the skin has entirely blackened. I’ve found neither the Plantains I’ve tried in Seattle, nor the ones I’ve tried here, to be tasty — even at this stage of ripeness.
I have however, found the Popo Ulus to be quite tasty indeed; and one needn’t even wait for the skin to blacken. Just let ’em get nice and soft, and you’re good to go.
Our Papayas are the smaller Hawaiian variety. They’ve got larger ones at the market, but I’m kinda afraid to try them as, as you may know, Papayas are one of the few (maybe the only) fruits which have been genetically modified. So, the small ones, grown right where I can see exactly what’s being done to them, it shall be.
And frickin’ fantastic they are. Seem to be getting better by the week, actually. And, yeah, they’re free for the picking.
I’ve had an interesting relationship with Avocados. As a child, I liked them not. ’round about my teen years, I developed a great love of the Guacamole, and then of Duffy’s’ Sandwich Shop’s massive turkey sandwich, which also featured avocados. I was officially an avocado lover.
But then, when I went all-raw, I suddenly lost the taste for them. Bummer. But the avocados here on the farm are so incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly delish, one would scarcely be able to believe one’s own taste buds. (Also incredible is the massive numbers of fruits that a tree can deliver.)
So, I’m officially an avocado-lover again. Except that I can only eat one per week, as the high fat content gives me problems (sore throat, lethargy) if I attempt (which, believe you me, I have attempted on a handful of occasions) to eat more than this. That’s a bummer, too. But it definitely makes one savour that one weekly treat all the more!
