Bananas are delicious solo or in sweet treats

High in iron, potassium, carbohydrates and fiber, low in fat and a good source of the mood-enhancing protein tryptophan, bananas are a fruit we often take for granted. Not only are they good for you, they are a sweet treat — especially the varieties grown in Hawaii.

Banana is an herbaceous plant suited to the warm, humid tropics. It produces a single bunch that can weigh 50 pounds or more.

A bush produces a single bunch in about 15 months, and the plant is cut down; keiki sprout from the underground stem to produce another bush.

The bunch is picked mature but green — bananas are a fruit whose flavor develops when ripened off the bush. Each bunch of bananas is cut into several hands of a dozen or so bananas, or fingers.

There are hundreds of varieties of bananas, some to be eaten out of hand, others better when cooked. The Cavendish banana is the commercially favored variety in the world; Williams is popular in Hawaii, and so is the Brazilian, often referred to as apple bananas.

And how do we like our bananas? Banana splits, banana pancakes, bread and muffins, as chips, fried in a lumpia wrapper, steamed with glutinous rice, dipped in chocolate, in smoothies and ice cream, bananas Foster, fritters, baked with butter and sugar, double-fried as tostones.

The banana flower is delicious in a salad or cooked; the broad, waterproof leaves are terrific for wrapping and serving food.

There are so many good reasons to eat bananas!

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Hawaii food writer Joan Namkoong offers a weekly tidbit on fresh seasonal products, many of them locally grown.