Millions of human
beings in Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean
live almost entirely on the mild and succulent but tasteless plantain.
Some people like the fruit; to me personally it is more suggestive of a
very flavourless over-ripe pear than of anything else in heaven or earth
or the waters that are under the earth--the latter being the most
probable place to look for it, as its taste and substance are decidedly
watery. Baked dry in the green state 'it resembles roasted chestnuts,'
or rather baked parsnip; pulped and boiled with water it makes 'a very
agreeable sweet soup,' almost as nice as peasoup with brown sugar in it;
and cut into slices, sweetened, and fried, it forms 'an excellent
substitute for fruit pudding,' having a flavour much like that of
potatoes _a la maitre d'hotel_ served up in treacle.
Altogether a fruit to be sedulously avoided, the plantain, though
millions of our spiritually destitute African brethren haven't yet for a
moment discovered that it isn't every bit as good as wheaten bread and
fresh butter. Missionary enterprise will no doubt before long enlighten
them on this subject, and create a good market in time for American
flour and Manchester piece-goods.
Though by origin a Malayan plant, there can be little doubt that the
banana had already reached the mainland of America and the West India
Islands long before the voyage of Columbus. When Pizarro disembarked
upon the coast of Peru on his desolating expedition, the mild-eyed,
melancholy, doomed Peruvians flocked down to the shore and offered him
bananas in a lordly dish.
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