Although bananas are sweet, they lack moisture and cannot quench their thirst, which makes people somewhat doubt whether it is a fruit or not. Because the definition of fruit is a juicy and predominantly sweet and sour, edible plant fruit. However, in any case, when we buy bananas, we go to the fruit shop or fruit stall, not to the dried fruit stall.
banana
For many Chinese, bananas were once a luxury: they were a valuable food to be given away, and often only the elderly could enjoy them at home.
When I was young, I had an impression of bananas, one was that I probably ate it somewhere, but I couldn't remember it clearly; The second is to see more, often to see others eat - the basic impression is sweet, other people's big meal is proof.
That summer, the staff store suddenly brought in a truckload of chic goods, all of which were usually rare carton boxes. The box is delicate, angular, neatly arranged, and the foreign characters on it surprise us little children. Later, I heard from the adults that the box contained Cuban bananas, and buying bananas was also to support their struggle against the United States. However, my parents did not buy it, and most of my classmates did not buy it, because bananas are very expensive. Until one day, a classmate triumphantly showed off, and the family bought a box, which can be made. We cast envious glances, but also helpless. But he went on to say that the banana was actually not very tasty, green and astringent, and when it reached his mouth, he couldn't swallow it. We then had some schadenfreude, thanks to the fact that the family did not buy it, otherwise we would have choked.
In the late autumn, this classmate shouted in the classroom again, bananas are really delicious, and they are only delicious when they are cooked... At this point, we don't have any sweetness in our hearts, full of vinegar and slippery taste - we want to eat bananas too much!
Banana plantations
In fact, bananas originate in southern Asia, mainly in the Indian subcontinent, but may also include southern China, such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Yunnan Xishuangbanna, where cultivation has been very early. However, when bananas first entered the Central Plains as a tribute, the Lingnan area was still the land of Baiyue, which was not yet within the jurisdiction of the Zhou Dynasty, and the Central Plains people did not include it in the local fresh fruits. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty broke through the Kingdom of South Vietnam, collected a large number of southern plants, and built a Fuli Palace in Chang'an — to put it bluntly, it was a greenhouse. Inside, two bananas were specially planted, which is also a banana.
Fruitful
In fact, as early as the middle of the Warring States period, Zhuangzi and Qu Yuan mentioned bananas in their respective works, and in the story of "Three Twilights and Four Nights", the food that drives the monkeys crazy is precisely bananas. However, there are not many mentions of bananas by later generations, and there are not many records about bananas. The reason for this may be the following aspects: First, the bananas eaten by the ancients are not the foreign varieties that are now selling well, and the taste is far less soft and sweet than today's bananas; Second, bananas are perishable, and the source is in the south, and it is almost impossible to transport them to the north; Third, the yield is low, and few people can eat it; Fourth, the ancients used to view bananas from the perspective of Chinese medicine, treating them as medicines, and Ji Han of the Jin Dynasty, that is, Ji Kang's nephew and grandson, said that it could "cure hunger". Chinese medicine practitioners believe that bananas are cold and sweet, have the effect of clearing heat, detoxifying, moisturizing the intestines and laxative. For these reasons, bananas could not have been widely cultivated and widely known in ancient times. Even a few decades ago, it was a rarity that many people had never tasted in their entire lives.
Three in the morning
Plantains belong to the same family as bananas, and their taste is far inferior to that of bananas, and they are barely edible. Probably due to the association-inducing characteristics of the enlargement and spread of leaves, the plantain has become the favorite image of ancient Chinese poets, while the banana has never entered the eyes of the poets. The taste of the plantain is not good, but the mood brought by it is very beautiful, Li Qingzhao has written "who planted the banana tree in front of the window, the yin is full of atrium", Ge Shengchong's "Dotted Lips" has the words "Idle a little, dreaming of the banana rain", Nalan Rongruo is even more "a little bit of plantain heartbreak, the sound of reminiscence of the beginning" - basho is actually the embodiment of loneliness and desolation, parting from sorrow.
Northerners can't tell the difference between bananas and plantains
It was only in the 21st century that bananas truly became popular fruits. Even in the far north, you can eat yellow-orange-orange-orange-sweet bananas in the middle of winter. This, of course, is due to the national industrial policy of promoting cultivation and the increasingly sophisticated cultivation technology. In 2019, India's annual banana production was 30.46 million tons, and China's was 12.07 million tons, ranking among the top two in the world. The bananas produced by China and India are basically consumed domestically and rarely exported. Indians also believe that bananas can be used not only to cure diseases, but also to worship the gods; Not only can it be eaten as a fruit, but it can also be eaten as a staple food. Mainland self-produced bananas can not fully meet the domestic demand, but also import one or two million tons of bananas every year to meet domestic demand, supermarkets common in Ecuador, the Philippines and other countries.
Indians love plantains even more
I remember that a strange thing happened in the last two years of the mobile phone function era: after the rumor storm of "banana cancer" in a certain year, many people's mobile phones appeared on the black and white screen of "Hainan bananas have SARS virus" message. For a time, banana consumers talked about Hainan and the color changed, the price of Hainan bananas plummeted, seriously slow to sell, and mature fruits rotted and deteriorated. Banana farmers want to cry without tears, and in a short period of time, their direct losses exceed 50 million yuan.
Bananas fly into the homes of ordinary people
Later, people learned the truth, and it turned out that there was a shocking inside story behind it. In order to clear the passage of bananas from a certain country into the Chinese market, domestic and foreign lawbreakers regard Hainan bananas as a thorn in their eyes, and do not hesitate to use rumors and slanders to attack their opponents, and the means are extremely despicable. However, the green mountains can not be covered, after all, the east flow, Hainan bananas have experienced this storm, there is a fast track to development.