Things I like about the Philippines, #8

I took this picture a long time ago knowing that if I ever blogged about things I like in the Philippines this would have to take place among them.

There are many varieties of bananas available here in the Philippines and they are all are quite flavorful and delicious- very sweet and just the perfect amount of tang.  Even a very ripe, brown-turning-almost-black banana is quite good (according to Dennis and others anyway, I don't really eat brown bananas no matter where I am, banana-snob that I am...).

If you try to eat a banana here when it is too green you will know it right away!  There is a Tagalog word for "unripe fruit taste" that is especially appropriate when eating a green banana.  It is super dry and pithy tasting and almost turns your tongue inside out.

I know ripe bananas are good here, but who better to tell you the difference than someone who recently went from 'here to there'?  Bee, my sister-in-law, lived with us here in the Philippines for two years and has now returned to Canada.  When she ate her first banana back in Canada she couldn't believe the difference.

Here's what she had to say: "Eating a banana that was yellow here tasted something like a green banana there... kinda pasty and a bit bland."  She said it would take her awhile to want to try a North American banana again.