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I recently bought a batch of six bananas from a local farmer's market - they were very fresh and very green and smaller, having just been picked. I let them rip

I recently bought a batch of six bananas from a local farmer's market - they were very fresh and very green and smaller, having just been picked. I let them ripen at home over the next 3 days. They tasted very much better than my usual rather tasteless supermarket-bought bananas. I'm going to try the exercise again tomorrow to check whether this was a one-off or not. After reading the article, I'm going to check with the grower whether or not these were Cavendish bananas which are the norm around this banana-growing area, or something else.

christkv 2y ago
Might be dwarf Cavendish which is what they grow on the Canary Islands in Spain. It's abut 1/2 the size of the full Cavendish and to me taste slightly better.
- simonblack 2y ago
  Went back to the market this morning: Those bananas were dwarf Cavendish. And the farmer said " .. and we don't treat them with (ethylene) gas."
fuzztester 2y ago
it is not a one-off. this is commonly done in India. in fact people even put a branch of bananas into a steel storage drum full of raw rice to help them to ripen. I don't know the science behind it.
- simonblack 2y ago
  Ripening fruit/veges give off ethylene oxide which causes further ripening. If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. Here in the tropics fruit ripens very quickly (chemical reactions proceed faster with increased temperature). I try to slow that down by keeping the stuff cold in the fridge. (But the fridge traps the EtO anyway!)
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    interesting. I think I remember reading that fruit producing companies use ethylene gas to artificially ripen some types of fruit. but I did not know that it can also happen naturally. good to know. I guess that explains why the traditional Indian method works. >If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. but why would you want to do that? trap that, I mean? i would have thought you would want to use a fan to blow away the naturally occurring ethylene gas, so that it does not cause the fruit to ripen fast / further.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      btw i said ethylene gas but you said ethylene oxide. need to google if they are the same or not. a few minutes later: I just checked it. they are different. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene
      - simonblack 2y ago
        You're quite correct. It's ethylene and not ethylene oxide that does the ripening. Sometimes you don't want to have to wait days for a fruit to ripen, that's why it's faster to use the plastic bag trick.

christkv 2y ago

Might be dwarf Cavendish which is what they grow on the Canary Islands in Spain. It's abut 1/2 the size of the full Cavendish and to me taste slightly better.

simonblack 2y ago
Went back to the market this morning: Those bananas were dwarf Cavendish. And the farmer said " .. and we don't treat them with (ethylene) gas."

fuzztester 2y ago

it is not a one-off. this is commonly done in India. in fact people even put a branch of bananas into a steel storage drum full of raw rice to help them to ripen. I don't know the science behind it.

simonblack 2y ago
Ripening fruit/veges give off ethylene oxide which causes further ripening. If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. Here in the tropics fruit ripens very quickly (chemical reactions proceed faster with increased temperature). I try to slow that down by keeping the stuff cold in the fridge. (But the fridge traps the EtO anyway!)
- fuzztester 2y ago
  interesting. I think I remember reading that fruit producing companies use ethylene gas to artificially ripen some types of fruit. but I did not know that it can also happen naturally. good to know. I guess that explains why the traditional Indian method works. >If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. but why would you want to do that? trap that, I mean? i would have thought you would want to use a fan to blow away the naturally occurring ethylene gas, so that it does not cause the fruit to ripen fast / further.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    btw i said ethylene gas but you said ethylene oxide. need to google if they are the same or not. a few minutes later: I just checked it. they are different. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene
    - simonblack 2y ago
      You're quite correct. It's ethylene and not ethylene oxide that does the ripening. Sometimes you don't want to have to wait days for a fruit to ripen, that's why it's faster to use the plastic bag trick.