Often, as
in the case of the orange, the rind even contains a bitter, nauseous, or
pungent juice, while at times, as in the pine-apple, the prickly pear,
the sweet-sop, and the cherimoyer, the entire fruit is covered with
sharp projections, stinging hairs, or knobby protuberances, on purpose
to warn off the unauthorised depredator. It was this line of defence
that gave the banana in the first instance its thick yellow skin; and,
looking at the matter from the epicure's point of view, one may say
roughly that all tropical fruits have to be skinned before they can be
eaten. They are all adapted for being cut up with a knife and fork, or
dug out with a spoon, on a civilised dessert-plate. As for that most
delicious of Indian fruits, the mango, it has been well said that the
only proper way to eat it is over a tub of water, with a couple of
towels hanging gracefully across the side.
The varieties of the banana are infinite in number, and, as in most
other plants of ancient cultivation, they shade off into one another by
infinitesimal gradations. Two principal sorts, however, are commonly
recognised--the true banana of commerce, and the common plantain. The
banana proper is eaten raw, as a fruit, and is allowed accordingly to
ripen thoroughly before being picked for market; the plantain, which is
the true food-stuff of all the equatorial region in both hemispheres, is
gathered green and roasted as a vegetable, or, to use the more
expressive West Indian negro phrase, as a bread-kind.
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