I am standing in the Marks & Spencer food store when something catches my eye: the package of bananas has a sticker on it that says “Ideal for the BBQ!” I am amused at what is clearly a labeling error until I look at the other packages of bananas. Every one of them has the exact same sticker.
Bananas? For the barbecue? This is the most baffling British food-label mystery since the jar of soup stock that suggested adding “one small swede, finely chopped.”
Lauren and I had known that the Brits had some reservations about their fellow Europeans, but we didn’t expect it to go that far. Eventually, to our disappointment, we learned that a Swede may be a Swede, but a swede is merely a rutabega.
So perhaps bananas are only “Ideal for the BBQ” because, in England, “BBQ” is slang for “pet monkey.” Or perhaps “ideal” is a quaint Britishism for “simply wretched.”
On the other hand, this is the nation that puts vinegar on its French fries, beef in its desserts, and marmite on… well, no matter what they put it on, it’s equally loathsome. ( To be fair, an Englishman would be just as disgusted by the American habit of crushing peanuts into a paste, which is then used to sully perfectly good jam.)
It is possible, therefore, that Mr. Marks, Mr. Spencer, or some employee thereof really does believe that bananas are perfect for barbecues. But how, exactly, are they perfect? Is one suppose to slice them and grill them? To dip them in lighter fluid, and use them for coals? To carefully remove the insides, and then use the peels as particularly chewy hot dog buns? Whatever the answer is, I only pray it doesn’t involve chopped Swedes.
what dessert do we put beef in?!
Spotted dick, Christmas pudding, or any other dish made using suet. Admittedly, maybe suet is not so much “beef” as “the rendered fat from a cow’s kidney”, but I’m not convinced that’s any more appetizing.
As a side note, all trans-Atlantic teasing aside, I must admit that I have become a complete convert to the idea of vinegar on chips, and using ketchup now seems awfully wimpy. But I’ll never give up my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
Hi Jacob, I enjoyed your piece and decided to google “barbequed bananas” to see what I came up with. Here is one of the results that came up: http://www.kcbs.us/contents/recipes/desserts/recipedessert2.htm
Note that the recipe comes via the Kansas City BBQ Society. Goes to show you that we coastal Americans are as far apart from our Midwestern kin as we are from the Brits.
Actually, that recipe sounds pretty good. I’ll have to try it.
But I wonder–is it such a common recipe in the UK that there was no need for further explanation on the banana label? Or would a Brit be as puzzled as I was? Would any of my British readers care to comment?
Get thee to a Thai restaurant, and ask for fried bananas and ice cream. Then the idea of grilling a banana (and serving it with a nice scoop of vanilla or coconut ice cream and maybe some chocolate or carmel sauce) will not seem so odd.
What _is_ odd is the fact that bananas are sold in packages over there. What’s wrong with the natural banana wrapper (you know, that yellow rubbery thing)?
Well, you have to understand M&S’s business model. The best US analogy is probably Trader Joe’s–like TJ’s, M&S food stores sell mainly their own house brands, many of which are pre-packaged convenience goods. You can buy loose bananas from Marks & Spencer, but it often ends up cheaper to buy a pre-packaged bag of them. Presumably M&S is passing on the savings incurred by needing only one “Ideal For The BBQ” sticker for the entire bag, instead of slapping one on each individual banana.
In any case, it is rapidly becoming clear from these comments that I am the only person on the planet who thinks there’ss anything strange about barbecuing bananas.
Oh, I’m with you on this one. Very weird. And I’ll take issue with Lucinda’s post. Frying, last time I checked, is not grilling or barbequeing. Isn’t that the key difference that Burger King exploits vis a vis McDonald’s? I think the strangeness/ normality/ tastiness of frying bananas is a whole different post.
Barbecued bananas are a delicacy in Ecuador, especially in the coastal tropics. I suspect the same is true in any country that grows bananas, and Britain was in an awful lot of countries where there were bananas.
It’s all down to the Girl Guides, Jacob. When they go camping, one of their favourite tricks is to wrap a banana in foil and stick it in the fire for ten minutes. It doesn’t taste any better afterwards and is harder to eat, but in some strange way this appeals to the ten-year-old female mind. The net result is that when any woman who’s been in the Guides sees a barbecue, she gets a nostalgic yen to cook a banana.
That’s my theory, anyway.
Funny you should mention Trader Joe’s as your example. I was just thinking that even Trader Joe’s, that center of pre-packaged produce in the States (and right across the street from me now, in my new digs — I will never go hungry again! as long as it is between 9 am and 9 pm), sells loose bananas.
Anyway, most banana distributors just put one sticker per bunch, and save on the plastic packaging to boot. So I find your argument unconvincing, Mr. Jacob.
Sir Toby, however, has a point. Frying is not the same as barbequeing. But warmed-up bananas are a tasty and delicious treat, and having had them cooked one way, I am not so quick to dismiss other methods of banana-heating. And here I beg to differ from the gentleman with the Girl Guide acquantaince — cooked bananas taste as different from uncooked bananas as fresh apples do from apple-pie apples. (On a related note, Girl Scouts eat s’mores, and I defy you to argue that a s’more is not greater than the sum of its constituent, unheated parts.)
Oh, and two other things: bananas foster, and grilled plantains. Also yummy.
Johne’s and Peter Hankins’ theories both are intriguing possibilities–and they might both be right. It’s possible that barbecued bananas first entered the British culture through the reach of the Empire, and the tradition is now preserved through the Girl Guides…
I don’t know about the recipes Toby gave you, but barbecued bananas are delicious. You put them on the barbie after you’ve cooked everything else, directly in their skins – don’t bother with foil. When they’re black all over (after 5-10 mins) take them off, slit them lengthways on the inside of the curve, add brown sugar and serve with creme fraiche (for adults) or ice cream (for kids). The banana flesh will have broken down, so you eat it by scraping it out of the skin with a spoon. Luvverly…
What about jellied eels?
As a Brit I thought I should comment…
Take your bannana and split down it’s length on the ‘inside’ on the curve. Insert chunks of chocolate. Wrap in tin foil and place in the hot ashes of the BBQ. The chocolate and the bannana all melt together – eat with a spoon to avoid mess!
Goes lovely with a beer towards the end of an evening –
Barbequed bananas are absolutely delicious with or without the addition of sugar/chocolate or anything else.
As Charles points out, you always do them at the end of the barbie, probably when you’ve had one too many Pimms, when the desire to taste something sweet after all that meat becomes overwhelming.