Fun fact, wild bananas are tiny and full of seeds. There's a lot of money being spent sequencing and understanding bananas in order to fight this kind of problem.
We grow one of these strains in our back yard here in southern Florida. You can't peel them and eat them like a "regular" banana, but you can slice the fruit from around the seeds (in the middle) and make some awesome banana bread the taste of which is quite simply impossible to achieve with store bought bananas. My kids say they taste "way more banana-y" than the ones from the store.
It could just be because you're harvesting them when ripe, similar to how tomatoes grown in your garden seem to have 10 times the flavour as the store bought ones.
However, I wouldn't rule out a difference in the actual flavour being a big factor too.
>Maturity and ripeness are two different things. Mature bananas may be picked green and will ripen off of the tree. This is how all commercial bananas which you purchase in the supermarket are done. Immature bananas will not ripen properly. Hanging time on the tree, to achieve maturity is different for each variety. I have ripened Kru fruit after only 6 weeks hanging time. However, my first bunch of Saba fruit required 11 months on the tree before ripening.
>Color change is evidence of ripening. Different varieties have different shades of yellow when ripe. Once again, becoming familiar with your particular variety is crucial.
>Knowing when to pick your bananas is the final step in enjoying your harvest. I approach each new variety this way: when the first hand (not the flower) appears, (this is the most important step) I write the date on the side of the stalk with a felt pen. After 6 months, if they have not shown any color change, I cut off the top (oldest) hand, and allow it to ripen (usually in a couple weeks). If it is OK, I continue removing hands as I need them. Eventually the rest will ripen on the “tree”.
in south america there is no "banana". if you ask someone to buy bananas you get a very puzzled look.
there are tons of types of banana. and none have this sweet, tutti frutty flavour the banana imported into the US has.
so, your wild banana is just one kind of a hundred.
south asia is the the same as south america, but with a whole lot of other kinds of bananas.... so there is plenty of variety other than cavendish and wild. most of the wild ones around brazil have almost invisible seeds. and are very easy to peel. and they go from huge (nanica... ironically means tiny) to very small ones (prata, ouro)
We're starting to get more kinds of bananas available here in the Asian groceries (who cater to just about anybody) -- 4 or 5 varieties. But I have no idea how to buy them. Half of them look bad on the shelf to my American banana buying eyes and I'm familiar enough with plantains to know that banana shaped fruits don't always taste like the bananas I grew up with.
Hell, I should just go buy some and see what they taste like.
On vacation in Indonesia I tasted lots of different varieties of very small bananas. They all had a lot more taste than the Cavendish. I wouldn't mind seeing those in European supermarkets, although they do indeed not look as nice as the Cavendish. For some reason we seem to select food by appearance instead of taste. (This is also why the standard Dutch tomato is beautifully red and tastes like water.)
Just buy them, then try to find recipes on the web.
That's how my wife and I always do it and over the years we've discovered a lot of very nice dishes we'd otherwise have never heard of. Just stay clear of black salsify -- it's tasty but very difficult to prepare without making a mess.
How do you legislate against a seed library? I can understand the big companies patenting particular seeds, or lobbying against state funding for libraries - but actually legislating against one? (Not trolling: genuinely interested in what arguments a Monsanto lobbyist (say) could use in this case).
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48150458/ns/technology_and_science...
Because of how domesticated bananas are reproduced, it's a good lesson on the problems with monoculture.