Bananas

Here in Tanzania we are very blessed with wonderful bananas!  I (Misha) have always loved bananas and was excited when I arrived in Tanzania to discovered that there are two different kinds of bananas here - little sweet ones and big sweet ones.  There are also green cooking bananas (not pictured) that are sort of like potatoes when you cook them.

The little bananas are very white inside and have a pretty strong flavor.  They are extremely sweet and have a fairly thin peel.  The "big" bananas are quite a bit smaller than the American "big" (i.e. only) bananas, as you can see by the pen I used for size comparison.  They are softer than their American (okay, Ecuadorian) counterparts and are sweeter, since they are tree-ripened.

I recall returning to the States after spending a year in Tanzania and having a banana with my breakfast my very first morning back.  I nearly spit it out!  It tasted like cardboard!  After having luscious, sweet, Tanzanian bananas for a year, I just couldn't do the huge, beautiful, but tasteless American ones anymore.