The other day I needed to buy 100 bananas to give out as a breakfast snack at a huge training for water committees. So I went to my friend who is a water committee president and sells fruit in the feria (farmers market), and she said she’d help me get them at a good price. We went and found a few bunches of good-looking bananas and she got me a great price!
When I got home my family asked me about all the bananas I had brought home, and I explained what I was going to use them for. They asked me if I was going to fry all those bananas, and I said: “No way! I’m just going to hand them out for people to peel and eat as a morning breakfast snack.”
“But those are for frying or boiling,” they told me.
My jaw dropped. Face palm.
I had just bought 100 PLANTAINS.
You see, most people in Peru just call any type of banana “plátano”, whether it’s a peel-and-eat banana or a plantain for frying or boiling (yes, you can boil bananas and they’re actually pretty delicious!) Also, it is more common to eat fried plantains for breakfast here than to peel and eat a banana for breakfast, which had added to the confusion of everything.
So even after 3 years, I’m still making cultural and language snafus! And I apparently still haven’t figured out my bananas.
When I lived in the US and I went to add bananas to my cart in the grocery store, the only decision I had to make was between organic and non-organic bananas. While there are plantains in most grocery stores (and every now and then I would buy plantains to fry), they are much bigger and fatter than bananas and it’s kind of hard to confuse them.
HOWEVER, in the feria in Oxapampa, there are at least SEVEN different types of peel-and-eat bananas and two different types of plantains…and there are probably more that I haven’t heard of! (Now, that is nothing compared to the thousands of different types of potatoes in Peru, but that’s a whole different article, right now we’re talking bananas.)
For my own vindication and for your reading and viewing pleasure, let me introduce you to the NINE different types of bananas I have heard of or encountered in Peru.
Let’s start with the EIGHT different (peel-and-eat) “baNAnas”…
The banana that most Americans are familiar with is the “plátano seda”. That’s the one that Chiquita has taken and made the super banana crop. They taste differently (sweeter) when you buy them from the feria (farmer’s markets) here because they aren’t artificially gas ripened, and they’re just a lot fresher. However, if you buy them in a supermarket in Lima or a big city, they taste pretty much the same as in the US because I think they are processed the same way.
The next peel-and-eat banana is the “plátano isla”. Fatter than the plátano seda, a little orangish color on the inside, this banana is delicious. I actually didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me and now I usually prefer it over the plátano seda.
Similar to the plátano isla is the “plátano palillo” or “plátano Guyaquil”, which is just a little bit fatter than the plátano isla. I admit that I haven’t tried this one yet, so I’ll have to test drive (test eat?) it before I leave.
Now you might have actually come across some miniature bananas in a grocery store in the US… here in Oxapampa those are called “canelito“ or “biscocho”, or “calbito”. Who knows what other names they might have in other parts… They are deliciously sweet and bite-sized.
Slightly larger than the canelitos are the “plátano manazana”. Yes, that translates to “the apple banana”. Supposedly this banana tastes like an apple. To me it still tastes like banana, but I’m still refining my banana taste…(remember I went from just one banana variety to nine, so I need some time to adjust.)
There’s also a redish-pinkish-purplish colored banana called the “platano morado”. (Translated as “purple banana”). I’m not a huge fan of this banana because for me it’s way too sweet, but then again I’ve only tried it once, so it could have just been the batch I was eating was excessively ripe. I will have to give it another try before I leave.
Finally, the plátano brasil, which I have heard of but have not tried. It is supposedly similar to the plátano seda, so your challenge when you visit South America is to find the plátano Brasil and try it.
Finally, the two type of plantains I have encountered are those that are for frying (plátano frito), boiling (plátano sancochado), or making banana chips (chifles).
The most common (and many claim is the most delicious), is the “plátano largo”. Most commonly, it is boiled or fried. This is the one that I mistook for plátano seda because we happened to come across some particularly small ones that highly resembled plátano seda (at least to my untrained eye.)
And finally, the plátano bellaco is also for frying and also commonly used to make banana chips, or also to prepare tacacho – a typical plate in the selva (jungle) region of a thick smashed plantain ball combined with pieces of pork and fried.
Now for the quiz. Can you identify each type of plátano in this photo? (Now you’re not laughing at my banana confusion, are you???)
Now that you know your plátanos, you are ready to come explore Peru! And I hear there’s an even greater variety of bananas in Ecuador, so I guess I will have to go investigate…and I’ll let you know!
And, here are the answers, for those curious minds:
*This post was updated to clarify that here the plátano Guyaquil is the same as the palillo.