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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JULY 2, 2011
Going bananas! Maze The monkey has a craving for banana. Draw the path through the maze to the banana, starting at 5 and counting by 5s up to 500.
We are smooth, yellow, crescent-shaped and soft. We have sweet, seedless, creamy-white flesh and pliable skin. We come in a bunch, and in green and red colours as well as yellow. We can be as short as 15cm or as long as 25cm and we’re four to five centimetres wide. Do you know who we are? Yes, you guessed it! We are bananas. The coolest of all fruits — that’s what my bunch and I think. You may think you know all about us — but there’s more to us and you’d better believe it!
We, the sweet yellow bananas, were discovered in 1836 by Jamaican Jean Francois Poujot, who found that one parent of our family was bearing us rather than our siblings. On tasting, he found us to be sweet in our raw state, and didn’t find the need for cooking. He quickly began cultivating us. Soon we were being imported from the Caribbean to New Orleans, Boston, and New York, and were considered an exotic treat. People gave us royal treatment. We were eaten on a plate using a knife and fork, unlike today.
Where did we come from?
You need nuclear science to extract juice from us!
We’ve been around for thousands of years. Scientists have evidence that we were discovered around 5000 BC and possibly even as long ago as 8000 BC. Some believe that we were the earth’s first fruit. We got our name from the Arabic word ‘Banan’ meaning finger. Antonius Musa, the personal physician to the Roman emperor Octavius Augustus, was the one who was credited for promoting our cultivation from 63 to 14 BC. Portuguese sailors brought us to Europe from West Africa in the early 15th century. Our Guinean name ‘banema’, which became banana in English, was first found in print in the 17th century. While we thrived in Africa, our origins are said to be in East Asia and Oceania.
Our parents … We don’t actually grow on trees. We’re grown on giant herbs related to the Lily and Orchid families. Our parent plants are palm-like, softstemmed herbs which can grow very tall. They are classified as herbs because they don’t have a strong woody stem. In fact, our parents are the world’s largest herbs. Our parents start producing us about 12 to 18 months after plantation. We grow in layers in a large bunch. A layer is called a hand and each hand has fingers, which is one of us. There can be eight to 12 hands per bunch and 12 to 16 of us in every hand. Do you know our parents bear only one bunch of bananas and then die? But luckily, before dying they shoot a new ‘eye’ (a baby plant) so that we can have more siblings.
SOURCE: WWW.PRINTACTIVITIES.COM
Red, yellow, green We used to be red and green, and not the yellow bananas you know today. We were used in cooking, but today our red and green siblings are referred to as plantains to distinguish them from us.
ha ha ha
Extracting juice from us isn’t easy at all, even though we contain 80 per cent water. Have you ever tried squeezing one of us? Sorry, but our molecular structure is just not very squeezable. We are currently available as banana shakes only. However, for some reason, in 2004, Indian atomic scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre claimed to have found a way to extract juice from us. Oh no! They will squeeze us!
Explore
And then, of course, there’s the popular idea that it is because of our peels that crew members slip and fall on deck.
wrap food, giving a unique flavour to the food. •The inside of our peel can be used to polish patent leather shoes. • In the Christian Bible, the forbidden fruit in the earthly paradise was the apple, but in Hinduism, it was us. • We are the world’s best-selling fruit, outranking the apple and the orange. • A man in India once ate 81 of us in half an hour. • Besides monkeys, reindeer also like eating us. • If you peel us from the bottom up you won’t get the strings on the flesh. • If you have a tough time falling asleep, eat one of us. Like a cup of warm milk, we are also a sleep enhancer.
Did you know? • Our cluster is called a ‘hand’ of bananas, while we as individuals are called fingers. • Alexander the Great first came across us in India in 327 B.C. • Our peel is edible, though not very palatable unless cooked. • India is our largest producer in the world. • In Uganda, we are such a big part of the diet that the same word, ‘matooke’, is used for both food and banana. • In 2001, Britain recorded 300 incidents of injuries related to us. The majority of these involved people slipping on our peels. • In the tropics, people sew the large leaves of our plants as plates for banquets. • When we are ripening, we emit such large amounts of the gas ethylene that we actually assist other fruits in ripening. • In South East Asia, our leaf is used to
Sailors don’t like us! Kids, do you think we could hurt anyone or be a bad omen in any way? But sailors believe that if we are on a boat, they won’t be able to catch fish. The origin of this belief dates back to the Caribbean trade of the 1700s. As the wooden sailing boats of that time had to move quickly to deliver us before we got spoiled, fishermen had a hard time trolling for fish on such fast-moving boats. Thus they started believing that we bring bad luck to them. During the same era, there were some sailors who believed that it was because of us that boats sank. This belief developed after many boats never made it to their destinations, and all of the doomed boats were unfortunately carrying us. Another creepy superstition about us is that a cargo carrying us could actually kill a man. But that’s not true. In reality, when we ferment trapped below deck, we emit methane gas which could possibly kill crew members unlucky enough to be working in the cargo storeroom. Then one of the popular theories about us was that venomous spiders would hitch rides inside us, and once we were onboard, the boat would be host to any number of lethal critters.
ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID
Why are bananas never lonely? Because they hang around in bunches. What do you do if you see a blue banana? Try to cheer it up. She left him out in the sun too long. Why don’t bananas snore? Because they don’t want to wake up the rest of the bunch. What key do you use to open a banana? A monkey. Why did the banana go to the doctor? Because it wasn’t peeling well! Why couldn’t the police arrest the banana?
How to make
Monkey on a banana tree
How did the mother banana spoil the baby banana?
Materials needed • • • • • • • • • • •
Paper cup Green construction paper (12” x 18”) Green craft foam (12” x 9”) Printable card stock Crayons or paint Hole punch Scotch tape Pencil Ruler Scissors Craft scissors (optional)
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Instructions 1.
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Print out a monkey and bananas template from the internet on card stock or draw your own version on a construction paper. Cut out both the monkey and the bunch of bananas. Colour the monkey and bananas using crayons or paint. Colour both sides of the monkey. To make the tree trunk, you’ll need a 12 x 18 inch sheet of green construction paper. Roll the paper into a tall cone. Insert a paper
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cup at the base to provide support and to define the size of the tree’s base. The tip of the cone should have a small opening (around 1.5 to 2 inch diameter) for the leaves. Tape the edges of the paper tree trunk in place. Trim off any excess length of paper at the base and tape the paper cup to the base of the cone. To make the leaves, we need a 12 x 9 inch sheet of craft foam. Draw five evenly-spaced lines along the length of the foam sheet. Leave a two-inch margin at the top of each line. Cut along the lines. Curve the tips of each strip to make a tapering shape, similar to real banana leaves. While holding the foam sheet by the uncut edge, roll the whole piece into a cigar shape. Insert the craft foam roll through the top opening of the tree trunk. Open up the leaves one at a time. Use the banana bunch’s stem to hook onto the tree trunk. Bend and curl the monkey’s tail. Tape the monkey to the tree.
(1 (1) 1) 1)
((2))
((3) (3 3)) 3
(4) (4 4) 4)
(5) ((5 5)) 5
SOURCE: FIRSTPALETTE.COM
(6 ((6) 6) 6)
( ) (7)
(8) (8)
(9) (9 9)
(10 (10) 10 0)
(11) (1 ((11 11) 11
(12) (12 12)
(13) (13 (1 13 3)
((14) (1 (14 14 1 4)
Because he split.