[lit-ideas] Re: A Diversion for Julie (and anyone else in need)
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 09:55:46 -0700
on 4/12/05 10:38 AM, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx at JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
I am intrigued by "fish with bananas". My
> sis-in-law from the DR occasionally cooked fried platanos which were
> surprisingly
> good, as I dislike bananas as a general rule, but here in the Midwest, fish
> and
> bananas are ....... just...... they don't keep company...... care to
> elaborate? I do love curry, if that helps.
It is often the most innocent-seeming questions that cause the greatest
trouble. Wanting to check my facts before responding, I went to my trusty
thirteenth Britannica and was briefly lost among the "b"s: "Bandana," is a
word, probably derived from the Portuguese and from the Hindustani. It
refers to what we call "tie-died" cloth. George Bancroft, the famous
American historian, pleaded the American case in the San Juan Islands
boundary dispute. "Banate" is another name for "Bannock," perhaps the most
feared native Americans in Oregon. What I wanted to check was the number of
species of banana and their world-wide uses. I do recommend the article I
read, thick with facts, this for example, "It would require abut eighty
bananas of average size to yield the amount of energy required daily, and
about double that number to yield the necessary amount of proteid [sic].
Hence the undue abdominal development of those who live mainly on this
article of diet." This takes a little of the shine off my bright manuscript
idea, "Lose weight in thirty days eating fish and bananas."
The bananas we generally eat are varieties of Musa Sapientum, a sub-species
of Musa Paradisiaca. Sapientum fruit can be eaten raw; Paradisiaca,
Acuminata, Fehi, Cavendishii (the so-called Chinese banana) all require
cooking. They vary in size greatly. One fruit from another species, Musa
Corniculata, Britannica's essayist reports, "affords an adequate meal for
three men."
Now we come to memory and the tricks it plays. I'm told that when I was
asked as a child what my favorite meal might be, I replied with a reasonable
combination of my two favorite foods: "bananas and chips" (freedom fries).
Perhaps this is why I combined bananas with fish. But in law school, Mr.
Henderson, the guy who taught Tort, wanted us to pay greater attention to
the reasoning in the case than to its outcome, so he would conclude his
exposition, "And the answer's a banana." (I think sometimes he swapped in
other fruit, but I'm pretty sure "banana" was his favorite). So perhaps I
combined bananas with fish out of some reverence for his memory.
In Hawaii the case was simple. We were either staying in a condo where
bananas could be harvested from the porch--one memory--or had bought a bunch
(in the English and in the American senses) from a roadside stand. One way
or another, at the end of the holiday we had a surplus of the stubby little
type. We also had found a source of good, fresh tuna. Pairing the two in
my mind, I concluded that they might taste well together, and so that is
what I served, the tuna very lightly cooked, the bananas merely heated,
fresh lime squeezed over the whole.
Last weekend I had some perch that had been frozen at sea, a flesh not quite
as meaty as tuna but not in an altogether different category either. By
different category I mean fish like cod and plaice and catfish, which I
can't imagine combining well with bananas. Perch, on the other hand, seemed
possible. And so I tried the combination, heating butter and curry powder
in a pan, pouring that combination into a classic French cream
sauce--shallots and parsely and butter, a little white wine and cream--and
then cooking the perch in that first pan's residues. I did nothing to the
bananas other than cut them. I let people serve themselves, buffet-style,
adding banana and sauce if they wished, none if they thought the notion too
weird.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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