Double bananas - more thought

I asked my Singaporean friend if she had ever seen a double banana before. She seemed unconcerned, uninterested. "Yes," she said. "They are quite common."

So why do we never see them in England? Firstly, because we don't get the bunches of small bananas. We import large ones, presumably not from Asia but other countries where larger ones have been developed by planting or genetics or natural selection.

Secondly, EU regulations would reject anything odd. In fact EU regulations on bananas are a notorious joke in England. People say we want to get out of the EU because they tell us the shape and size our bananas must be.

Supermarkets also reject off shapes and sizes, claiming that the customer is fussy and won't buy. But every now and then along comes a whistle blower and recycler who demands that misshapen cheaper fruit, broken biscuits, odd shaped chocolate, should be brought back and offered at bargain prices to those who are not fussy and can't afford top quality.

Besides, a lot of broken biscuits and funny shaped food can be used either as pet food, or plant food, or compost, or for those who are too old or young to care, especially when mixed into items such as cakes and casseroles. Providing the food is safe, a chopped up carrot can be any size and shape in a casserole. Likewise, bananas of any shape and size can be mashed up in banana bread, a favourite food in Singapore because bananas are plentiful and cheap.

My Singaporean friend told me odd shaped or double bananas are frequently seen in Singapore. After we had eaten it and looked at the photo, I thought, we ought to be able to sell that on ebay. Too late. But what if we get another.

"Impossible," say the family. "It's a banana!" In the heat they don't last long. We should at least have saved the skin and dried it. Alas it has gone now. Bin bags are emptied every day in Singapore. You can't leave leftovers lying around in the heat. You will soon get waving strings of ants dots across the work surfaces and cockroaches scarring across the four into holes in sitting boards and under fridges and furniture.

So out goes the rubbish, and by bye to the double banana skin. But at least I preserved the picture so we can all enjoy it later.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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