Banana

Name	Banana
Peak season	year-round, though mainly during the rainy season
Uses	hand-fruit, drink, snacks
Vegetation	plant
Scientific Name	Musa sapientum
Spanish Name	banano

Nicaragua knows many different types of bananas, varying in color, shape and size. As a result of the abundance and wide availability of this fruit, it provides for a cheap snack, which needs no preparation whatsoever. However, there are several other ways in which Nicaraguans consume their bananas. A tasty drink is prepared by combining banana and milk. In the department of Carazo, overripe bananas are furthermore used to create vinegar. This same type of banana can also be baked and served with hot cheese.

The different varieties of bananas that are produced and sold in Nicaragua include the common, yellow banana that is a well-known fruit throughout the world, but also other, more unusual varieties like the ‘banano caribe’, which comes in a yellow and in a red color, and the ‘guineo cuadrado’, family of the regular banana, has a rather rectangular shape. This banana species is mostly used in cooking.

This remarkable fruit also grows in a remarkable way (and so do all of the different varieties). The banana plant is actually an herb (its stem is not woody at all), but due to its size and shape often mistaken for a tree. It normally reaches height of about 3 meters, and its large, green leaves (up to 3.5 meters in length) give the plant a very tropical image. Banana plants have one big, purple flower and each plant produces one single bunch of bananas.

One of the most interesting aspects of this plant is that it is cut after producing the bananas, and new plants will appear around the original plant. The plants have no seeds; new plants will simply grow around existing plants. A field of banana plants therefore often looks rather unorganized with many small groups of plants close together. These plants start producing bananas when they are 12-18 months old, and they prefer a tropical, humid climate.

Even the banana plant can be used for several purposes: the large leaves are great for packaging food or other items and the old stems can be processed to produce paper!