PLANTAIN In all the fruitshops in Chennai, the fruit minimum priced now is plantain. Earlier differentvarieties of plantain were priced differently. Now the price is Rs 80-00 per kgfor all varieties except for Malappazham (Hill plantain). Another thing I have notedis the abundance of red plantains which was scarce earlier. Banana (Nenthran)had become abundant years back. Numberof fruit sellers has increased similar to nationalised banks in our area. Someprovision shops have started selling plantains. Some vegetable shops also havestarted selling fruits. Already many air conditioned supermarkets have packed fruits in shelves.
In many countries the word Banana is used instead of plantain. Probably the stem of atree used as food item is only plantain. I thought today my posting can beabout plantain and plantain products. Hope an interesting reading. Sincerely, Gopala krishnan22-12-2021 1. Plantains not fully ripen Recently in doctor’stalk in you-tube channel, I could listen not fully ripe bananas can be eaten bydiabetic patients. I tried for a week eating half of banana not fully ripenedafter the meals. I found there was noincrease in blood sugar level. Bottom of the thickskins of banana are also edible and contain many vitamins. I recollect in myboyhood days my grandmother ate bottom of thick skin first. The doctors talked in you-tube are working in establishedhospital as diabetic specialists. According to manydoctors other than they are crispy and tasty, all proteins and vitamins arelost in fried banana chips. However crispy banana chips are very tasty snack. 2. Serving in feasts. A feast is notcomplete without serving of plantain called Poovan in Kerala/Rasthali in Tamilnadu.Feasts are served in banana leaf. If thesize of fruit is small, two numbers are served. Some eat plantain along with payasam(sweet slightly liquid pudding), some in the end, some in the very beginningitself, before other things are served. Nowadays the size of plantain is so large;one cannot eat even one fully. During feasts banana chips and sarkarapuratti isalso served. 3 Serving in srardha One of the fruitsserved to bhokthas during srardha is poovan type plantain fully ripe. The fruit is served afterremoving skin. Reason isobvious. Two skin removed plantains are served. Another fruit served isJackfruit flesh during its season. It is told equal to serving meat if somepithrus desired it. Fully ripe nenthranis cut to pieces and fried in ghee adding jaggery and served to bhokthas. Some areas Bananachips are served, slicing raw banana and cutting to pieces and fried in coconutoil. In the dish calledpoduthooval either monthan or nenthran raw pieces are added along with otheritems. Items are served in lengthy not torn two banana leaves type thoosan(leaf with growing end) one placed over another, upper one about three inchesbelow the bottom leaf. 3a. Hiranya/aama srardha On the thithi day of their pithrus many Brahmins performs aama srardham, giving thebhokthas raw rice and two numbers monthan raw plantain in plantain leaf along with Dakshina. Monthan is avariety large in size above banana. But after ripening it is least tasty. Somepeople who appear stout but less knowledge is called Monthanpazham. 4. Method of keeping. Generally the kulais suspended with a rope in Kerala shops. In Tamilnadu some shops suspendbunches from Kula, many shops keeps bunches on table/basket. In Tamilnadu thecustomers have liberty to cut any plantain they desire or the shop man will cutand give as desired. In Kerala only the shop man cut and gives- Either from topor from the bottom. He will not cut and give mid portion expressing difficultyto cut. 5. Pricing The total plantainsin the kula are counted and price is fixed for 50%. The remaining can remainunsold or decayed. Keeping marginal profit plantains are sold. If all plantainsare sold the shop owner gets more money. Every day one cansee before the fruit shops baskets filled and kept with decayed fruits foreating by cows. Plantains are one among the fruits kept. One can see more cows near fruit shops. 6. Kadali phalam Though Kadalai is avariety of plantain given for nivedyam in temples, in general plantain iscalled Kadaliphalam inSanskrit. Earlier sasthrikals preferred ordinary plantain calledPalayamthodan for functions. Now they accept any type other than red plantainand Nenthran. 6a.Malappazham The malappazham isleast attractive , smaller in size, somewhat thin with more dark spots andthick skin. They are highly priced. Forthe high cost and taste, inside of thethick skin is also eaten by many. It ishaving special taste and sweetness. 7. Red plantain Red plantain hasspecial smell, attraction, thick skin, and above the size of the rasthali/poovan.The present day rasthali or red plantain cannot be eaten fully by a person.Normally it is cut to two pieces and one piece is eaten. Red plantain has one or two daysmore shelf life comparing to Rasthali. 8 Banana(Nenthran) Banana is calledking of plantains. At one time banana cultivation was mostly limited to Kerala.Now it is cultivated in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Hence the abundance inChennai. Raw banana chipsfried, half ripe fried are prepared in Chennai outskirts itself and comes inpackets. Bakeries get bulk packets and sold as the quantity required. Nowsarkarapuratti is also prepared by a company in Trichy and available inshops. Once banana skin was used toprepare a dish called sammanthi. Nowadays they are fed to cows. Ripe banana boiledis part of Tiffin in many restaurants in Kerala. Some restaurants cut banana tothree parts and boil and serve. Ripe banana cut to pieces and boiled is eveningsnack in many iyer homes in Tamilnadu. Even today bananafry is monopoly of Kerala restaurants. I have not seen it in Tamilnadurestaurants 9. Monthan plantain I am not aware anyother use of monthan other than dish thoran or mezhukkupuratti on amavasi day inKerala iyer homes. In Tamilnadu it is used largely in preparation of snack item- bajji. What pazhamporito a Keralalite is vazhaikka bajji to Tamilnadu person. Montham is also used toprepare chips in Tamilnadu. Salted, and pepper/ chilli powder applied chips areavailable. 10 Plantain stem and flower After cuttingplantain kula, the stem called Pindi istaken and used to prepare thoran. Some drink juice of the stem. It is told, drinkingjuice of stem or consuming any other preparation is good to remove kidney stones. InTamilnadu the stem cut to pieces are available for sale in vegetable shops. Apickle for use for 1-2 days is also prepared in some homes using banana stem. The flower is usedto prepare thoran and a fried preparation called Gola in iyer homes. 11. Vazhappola The outer coveringof plantain stem is called pola. The top end of pola is plantain leaf. After kula is cut and removed, thesecoverings are cut to uniform length and dried in sunshine. Then it is split aslengthy pieces and used as strings tostitch garlands in temples and by flower merchants for various functions (either auspicious or inauspicious). We can see bunches of such strings with flower merchants. The dried pola cutto pieces is also used to pack snuff merchants to pack snuff. The use to packsnuff is less now. 12. Plantain leaves merchants Plantain leaves arenormally cut before the flower appeared.Lengthy leaves are packed together from cultivation fields and send to shops bymini Lorries. In plantain leaves shops they are opened and sized, cleaned and sold. Nowadays most restaurants use plantain leaf to serve food item .Leaf isplaced over the top of plate and items are served. During this Sabarimalaiseason, bottom plate is not used. 13 Plantains in homes. Plantains are growneven in small homes where some space isavailable. Only thing one should be cautious the growing leaves should nottouch EB current lines. Before the flowerappears new plants would appear near bottom. Before the kula is cut, they maybe growing even to 3/4th size of the plantain tree. On Amavasi day mostiyers use plantain leaves to eat food. For srardha the Bhokthas are served foodon two thoosan leaves, one placed over the other about three inches below the first leaf to serve all the fooditems. 14. Blessing- vazhayadi vazhai Young couples areblessed to live happily like vazhayadi vazhai meaning with number of childrenand grandchildren and useful to all life. On many occasionsduring marriage couples are given milk added with sliced plantain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1819202396.521723.1640187290552%40mail.yahoo.com.
