Bananas

banana bread

I love bananas.  I love them fresh, in pie, in fruit salad, but most of all I love them in bread.  Banana bread is one of the most amazing breads ever made, at least in my opinion.  But since I only make things I enjoy, I guess my opinion is the only one that matters on this issue in my kitchen.  OK, I'm kidding just a bit here, but you get my point, right?

Fruits in baked foods are bit of a ticklish issue with me when it comes to eating foods that others have prepared.  I love blueberries, but I don't often love blueberry pies because so much of the time the skins create what to me is an unusual texture in the pie filling.  I love strawberries, but in pies they always seem a bit too ... something ... I don't know what exactly, but I know that most strawberry pies don't really fit my tastes.  Perhaps I think they're too strong.  Apple pies are often cooked in such a way that the apples are still a bit crunchy or least firm, and I hate that.  Come on, let's cook those apples all the way through!  I want them soft and spiced and flavorful.  Cherries are great eaten fresh, but don't give me a cherry pie.  Remember that issue with blueberries and skins?  Well cherry skins create a pie filling texture I just can't get on board with because those skins just don't seem to break down, at least not in most of the pies that I've been served in the past.  When I work with a recipe for a baked good with fruit, I only use it and pass out the finished food to people if I can work around these issues (at least issues to me) that so often seem to show up in recipes that are used by home cooks or found in so many cookbooks or even produced by commercial bakeries. 

Bananas, though, are so soft and mushy by the time they are ready to be made into banana bread that they always work.   However, once in a while I see a recipe for a banana bread with chunks, actual chunks of banana, in the mix, chunks large enough that when you eat the baked and cooled bread, you're still eating chunks that to me just don't work.  If I wanted this sort of thing, I would just make fruitcake.  However, that's another topic entirely which we'll save for a different day.

Banana bread is always good.  Sometimes I eat it plain, and sometimes I spread a nice layer of very creamy soft butter on a slice.  I have no idea where I learned to add the butter, but I've been doing it since I was a kid.  People always look at me with a quizzical expression when I do it, but that doesn't sway me at all.  It's too good.  

I remember back in 1987, I made banana bread to watch the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on TV.  I don't know why I specifically remember that except that I've always been a big fan of Star Trek in all its iterations and obviously also a big fan of banana bread.  I recently went back and tried the same recipe that I used back then.  My tastes have changed a lot.  I didn't care for it as much.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't the same as the recipes I use now.  But I still remember enjoying eating an entire loaf while I watched that television event (the return of Star Trek to the airwaves many years after the original series was aired in the late 1960s).

Why am I discussing banana bread tonight?  I really have no good reason.  Maybe it's because I'm craving a good loaf.  Maybe it's because I recently saw a recipe with chunks and it's been bugging me.  Maybe it's just because I felt like it.  Maybe it's just because I pulled some cookies out of the oven that seem like they would be great crumbled and crushed to top a big sweet banana split.  

The reason doesn't matter, I suppose.  All that matters is that banana bread is great.  I think I'll make some this weekend.  

Have a great evening everyone!