WHEN IS A BANANA TOO RIPE?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 85 (Supplement)

WHEN IS A BANANA TOO RIPE?

Considering the proportions to which the use of the fruit has attained, it is a matter of no small importage to settle not onlv when bananas are m the nest condition for consumption but also as to when they have passed the stage foi which they are fit for human food. In their native countries they are seldom before the Am is discoloured, and the pulp of so soft a consistency ‘hat can be scooped out with a spoon. Under the artificial conditions they are placed in these climes they undergo somewhat rapid changes, and the times at winch they are best suited for consumption may be short and difficult to predict with any degree of precision. Authorities, however, claim that they are habitually eaten here before they have reached their most suitable stage. Before they are thoroughly matured, moreover, they are apt to be insipid in flavour, and to cause dyspepsia, and other forms of intestinal disturbances. They should not be eaten before the skin is blackened in places or when there is any reluctance in the skin to separate from the pulp. Housekeepers know how bananas will change in the course of" a single night from the manifestly sound condition to one in which the skin is blackened and the pulp soft and slightly discoloured. Now, children, infinitely prefer these last bananas to those that are apparently sounder, although thedr elders may hesitate to gratify their taste in this re-

spect from a fear as to the vim.esninoness of such fruit. Attacks ox gas no or intestinal disturbance from the use of unsound bananas are far from common, and it may well he that in this instance

the natural inclination of the child covers mere wisdom than the caution of its elders; in fact, experts say that the banana, I ke the medlar, can hardly be in toe ripe a condition, for eating.