Posted by The Lorax in October 3, 2008
Oritos, growing in Union Base, Pastaza Province. Oritos are a dessert banana cultivar of Brazilian origin, and are grown throughout Ecuador. A single raceme is about 20-25 hands, totalling around 150 fingers, and sells at the farmer’s markets for between $1 and $2, depending on maturity, hand size, and finger size. The Orito is the sweetest dessert bananas available in Ecuador, with firm ochre-yellow flesh, and is also the smallest; a finger is between 4 and 6 inches in length. Province of origin seems to have some bearing on the size of the fingers; the smallest Oritos are from the southern provinces of Loja and El Oro, while larger ones are produced in the northern provinces of Santo Domingo de Los Tsachilas and Esmeraldas. Finger length notwithstanding, Oritos are always a completely cylindrical fruit; they have almost no curve and none of the peel-ridges associated with the larger dessert bananas. As the fruit matures, their thin peel tends to stick a bit, which can make eating riper or slightly overripe fruits a bit of a challenge. Oritos are considered to be at their best when the very tip of the banana is still green, and the fruit is free of any black marks.
This small-fruited banana is cultivated throughout Ecuador as a domestic-sale crop, and is rarely seen in the export markets, largely due to the delicacy of the fruits. Oritos bruise easily and have a relatively short time between ripening and spoilage, both of which make the fruit undesireable to commercial banana producers. However, a plant or two of Oritos is a very common sight in personal and market gardens, as they are considered to be superior to Cavendish type dessert bananas. Recently, Dole in Ecuador has introduced a Cavendish-Orito hybrid called “baby bananas,” however the hybrid simply produces small-fingered bananas with the characteristics of full-sized Cavendishes, and has thus not caught on outside of North America.
See Musa x paradisica for more information on bananas in general and the banana industry in Ecuador. And check out Bananas.org for more information about bananas and how to grow them.
Posted by The Lorax in March 24, 2008
Cavendish-type bananas, growing in Vilcabamba, Loja Province. Bananas, properly called banana plantains, are the fruit of the banana plant, which is often mistaken for a tree. It’s not - rather it’s a tall pseudostem that bears the leaves and fruits of the plant. A banana plant generally fruits once, then dies back and is replaced by another pseudostem. To avoid large seeds in the fruit, commercial cultivars of banana are triploid, and therefore sterile, and are reproduced by cuttings and pups - the rhizome of the plant has lateral motion, and plantation bananas are said to “walk,” referring to the direction of the new shoots. The inflorescence of the dessert-type (sweet) bananas that are most familiar to Western palates are borne pendantly out of the heart of the pseudostem, with leathery red-purple bracts covering each tier of flowers (some of which will eventually become the bananas). As the inflorescence matures, the bracts roll back to expose flowers to pollinators a tier at a time. A happy banana plant can produce well in excess of 200 bananas on the flower-stalk in this manner; these are arranged in a semi-radial pattern of “hands” of about 15-20 bananas each. For cultivars such as the Cavendish type shown here, the bunch can weigh in excess of 100 kg. Once the flower has spent itself, the stalk is often wrapped in plastic (I personally use a large garbage bag) to promote ripening and reduce pest attacks to the green fruit. Dessert bananas are ripe when they are yellow, and overripe when they are black; due to the lack of seeds in most banana cultivars, composting the overripe fruits will not yield new trees.
Bananas are originally native to Southeast Asia, but once domesticated they spread around the globe and can now be found throughout the tropics. In the case of Ecuador, they were introduced by Spanish colonists in the 15th and 16th centuries. The common name “banana” is of African origin, passed into English through Portuguese and Spanish.Bananas are one of, if not the largest food crop grown on the planet, and Ecuador is the world’s leading exporter of bananas. Dole, Chiquita, Del Monte, and Fyffes all grow their bananas here, and there is also considerable production for domestic markets; last year’s production was well in excess of 6 tonnes.
Banana and its relative plantain form staple starches in Ecuador and are the foundation of a number of traditional dishes, the most recognisable of which are chifles - fried green banana or plantain chips, and the most exotic of which are the sopa de bolones de verde and empanadas verdes, which both use mashed green banana or plantain as a dough. It’s interestign to note that very few Ecuadoran dishes feature ripe banana; most are based on green due to its higher starch content. This said, dessert bananas are commonly eaten out of hand.A single ripe banana contains about 23g of carbohydrates, 1g of protein, and is rich in the B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, and the minerals potassium and magnesium. This combination makes the banana a perfect food for athletes to replenish themselves after exercise. In Ecuador it is said that a banana a day keeps the doctor away.
The banana crop in Ecuador is currently threatened by the black sikatoga fungus, which destroys the leaves of the banana plant; however this seems to mainly affect the huge, monocultured commercial operations of the big bananeros. Smaller plots of banana are normally permacultured in Ecuador, alongside papaya and coffee; it seems that the presence of these plants discourages the worst of the banana blights.
Apart from its fruit’s wide popularity, the banana plant is a fount of materials. It is a source of fibre for textiles, and produce a soft, durable fibre similar to silk that is used widely in Japan and Nepal for both clothing and carpets. Both artisan and mass-pulped paper are made from banana stalks; it produces a fine-grained paper with a natural beige hue, and is a promising and extremely renewable resource for the commercial paper industry. Banana sap or latex is extremely sticky and can be used as a practical adhesive.
Many thanks to the folks at
The International Banana Society Forums for helping me to identify my bananas and providing me with care tips. They’re fantastically friendly and helpful people, and you should check them out!
