Friday, July 18, 2008

Bananas - How To Serve Them, part 1

Last year, I posted two booklets from the Fruit Dispatch Company of New York, a subsidiary of United Fruit (now Chiquita). At the time, I wasn't aware that the company had published so many guides devoted to the world's third most popular fruit. Bananas...how to serve them (1941) is another basic handbook for banana lovers. Stomach churning recipes like Banana Meat Loaf are only the tip of the iceberg; the real draw to these books are the anthropomorphic illustrations. I would love to know the identity of the illustrator because his or her work moves me deeply. For a look at yet another Fruit Dispatch booklet, head over to Dinosaur Casserole and be amazed at the Salad Seer!

Note: This cookbook is so packed with good bits (and 28% of your daily required Vitamin B6), that I'm going to split the book up into three posts. A large amount of bonus (and enlarged) scans of the illustrations will be available in my Flickr set devoted to these banana books. New scans will be added there over the next three posts, as well.


Front cover - Various sweet items.. and Banana Scallops with Ham


Professor Peel says, 'For eating as a fresh fruit...Bananas are best when fully ripe.' And, if you don't want a warning from Sheriff Plantain, you'd better not store your next bunch in the refrigerator!


Baked Bananas can be 'served hot as a vegetable or as a dessert with cream or a hot fruit sauce'!


Mixed Banana Grill


French Fried Bananas In A New Style - Banana Scallops


Rock, Scotch Egg, or Banana Fritter?

Stay tuned for the next two installments of Bananas...how to serve them, and don't forget to check out my Flickr set for a greater array of illustrations and enlargements!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some of the Indian restaurants on 6th St. in the Village serve banana fritter-type things with the samosas. They are ever-so-very good, and unusual for that part of the meal.

I sense these fritters are a bit scarier.

Maria said...

That sounds really good! Although, banana fritters sound more like a dessert than an appetizer!

Not only are these fritters scary.. they don't actually look like fritters, do they? By definition, a fritter contains only a small quantity of batter!

Anonymous said...

Interesting -- I had no idea there was a batter ratio in fritters!

I suspect that the deep fried banana things they serve in Indian restaurants serve as a kind of palate cleanser. They generally hit the table after the samosas and pakoras, but before the meal -- when other, fancier places would serve sorbet or something.