Nass­er Khan

We tend to grav­i­tate to­wards things that are not lo­cal, as is the case with our food in­take. Giv­en the re­ces­sion that we are in, now is the ide­al time to grow and eat lo­cal. Plan­tain (Musa sp), the fea­tured crop in this in­stall­ment of the se­ries FOOD FOR THOUGHT...GROW AND EAT LO­CAL, is a sta­ple car­bo­hy­drate food that can be used in­stead of im­port­ed white pota­to.

Es­ti­mates have it that our food im­port bill is at $4 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly and grow­ing. This se­ries seeks to in­form about the 149 crops that are grown in Trinidad (not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them). Note that these crops are all il­lus­trat­ed in al­pha or­der along with their sci­en­tif­ic names on two charts which were spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens and dis­trib­uted to all schools and li­braries. Adap­ta­tions of the charts were done for Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and St Lu­cia. Ef­forts are un­der­way to do so in Ja­maica and Guyana as well.

Did you know that in the 1960s the Mac­queripe Val­ley was lush with cit­rus and ba­nana fields pro­duc­ing more than enough to sup­ply the na­tion? Oil cen­tric­i­ty, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and non-agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness have put paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. To­day, there must be in­no­va­tion in agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion to as­sist lo­cal farm­ers if we are to re­duce our huge food im­port bill.

Plan­tains are a mem­ber of the ba­nana fam­i­ly, a ver­sa­tile su­per­food, with many ways of prepa­ra­tion and cook­ing. They are starchy, low in sug­ar va­ri­ety, high in some nu­tri­ents, and cooked be­fore serv­ing as it is un­suit­able raw. Its skin is thick­er than the ba­nana's and it is longer. It can be eat­en both in the green and ripe stages and can be fried/sauteed, boiled or baked/roast­ed.

Plan­tains make their way in­to a va­ri­ety of meals and are a sta­ple in many house­holds, in the tra­di­tion­al Sat­ur­day soup to the pop­u­lar pro­vi­sions and salt­fish del­i­ca­cy, and the Sun­day callaloo and mac­a­roni pie meal. Have you ever eat­en on a "fig leaf" in a tra­di­tion­al In­di­an wed­ding? The plan­tain or ba­nana leaf is used as a sub­sti­tute for a plate in­stead of the So­hare leaf that was used back in In­dia by in­den­tured labour­ers who came to T&T.

Plan­tains are a re­li­able all-sea­son food since they fruit all year round and can be used for cook­ing at any stage of ripeness, and some even eat the raw ripe plan­tain. Very ripe plan­tains have soft­er, deep yel­low pulp that is much sweet­er than in the ear­li­er stages of its growth. Steam-cooked/boiled plan­tains are a nu­tri­tious food for in­fants and the el­der­ly.

A ripe plan­tain is used as food for in­fants at wean­ing, mashed with a pinch of salt. It is al­so a gluten-free food. In the green ma­ture stage, plan­tain is used to make fried chips and is sold com­mer­cial­ly in pack­ets as a pop­u­lar snack. The leaves of the plan­tain tree are used for wrap­ping of paime and pastelle pri­or to their cook­ing/steam­ing. For a nu­tri­tious snack, try some home­made plan­tain chips. Af­ter re­mov­ing the skin from un­ripe fruit, it is then thin­ly sliced and deep fried in boil­ing oil. It can al­so be boiled, of course.

Here is some sci­en­tif­ic in­for­ma­tion for those of our read­ers so in­clined: All mod­ern plan­tain cul­ti­vars have three sets of chro­mo­somes (ie they are triploid). Many are hy­brids de­rived from the cross of two wild species, Musa acumi­na­ta and Musa bal­bisiana. The cur­rent­ly ac­cept­ed sci­en­tif­ic name for all such cross­es is Musa � par­a­disi­a­ca; cul­ti­vars which are cooked of­ten be­long to the AAB Group, that is, two acumi­na­ta genes and one bal­bisiana gene.

Ba­nanas, on the oth­er hand, be­long to the AAA Group. The two com­mon va­ri­eties cul­ti­vat­ed are Horse (large) and French (small­er but sweet­er).

This plant grows from an un­der­ground hor­i­zon­tal plan­tain stem which puts out lat­er­al shoots. The ma­ture tree reach­es 12 to 15 feet tall with huge leaves which wrap around the trunk. It takes ten to 15 months to pro­duce flow­ers and an­oth­er four to eight months to grow plan­tains. Once the fruit is har­vest­ed, the en­tire plant will be cut down to the ground and oth­ers will rise up from the un­der­ground lat­er­al shoots. See brief YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1PePN­HJncQ on how to plant a plan­tain tree.

Plan­tains, on the oth­er hand, are wide­ly used in the world of nat­ur­al cure as they are said to con­tain health-pro­mot­ing prop­er­ties, be­ing es­pe­cial­ly high in potas­si­um and vi­t­a­mins A and C. It is al­so a good source of car­bo­hy­drate, low in pro­tein and fat. As a po­tent source of min­er­als and vi­t­a­mins, hav­ing plan­tain in your di­et of­fers many health ben­e­fits.

It re­leas­es en­er­gy and pro­vides tis­sue-build­ing el­e­ments. Stud­ies have al­so sug­gest­ed that plan­tains may be use­ful in pre­vent­ing or treat­ing kid­ney and blad­der prob­lems. It is rec­om­mend­ed for those need­ing treat­ment for drop­sy, wa­ter re­ten­tion and bed-wet­ting, since it is known to dry out ex­cess mois­ture. Plan­tain is al­so used to heal cuts and wounds. Reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of plan­tain al­so aid in main­tain­ing healthy skin.

The fol­low­ing his­to­ry about the plan­tain in Trinidad is ex­cerpt­ed from not­ed T&T his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh's ar­ti­cle in the Sun­day Guardian of April 26, 2015:

There was abun­dance of plan­tains and ba­nanas in the 19th cen­tu­ry as co­coa pro­duc­tion boomed. When the young ca­cao trees were set in the ground they re­quired a lot of shade and so, in their for­ma­tive years, were shel­tered by ba­nana or plan­tain trees. Such was the al­i­men­ta­ry val­ue of plan­tains in par­tic­u­lar that in 1858 Dr Louis De Ver­teuil wrote:

"The plan­tain is ex­ten­sive­ly used in Trinidad, and on the neigh­bour­ing con­ti­nent: it is a cheap, whole­some and nu­tri­tious di­et, and per­haps the most pro­duc­tive of all al­i­men­ta­ry plants in fact, field labour­ers con­tend that it is bet­ter suit­ed to the sup­port of their strength, in man­u­al labour, than bread at any rate, it forms the staff of life to the gen­er­al­i­ty of Cre­oles. Its nu­tri­tive val­ue has not yet been as­cer­tained, but Boussin­gault con­sid­ers it su­pe­ri­or to that of pota­toes; it is al­so su­pe­ri­or, in gen­er­al opin­ion, to that of cas­sa­va and rice: it may rank as a fari­na­ceous al­i­ment, con­tain­ing al­bu­men and gum. The plan­tain is used ei­ther in the ripe or green state: in the for­mer it is eat­en ei­ther as a fruit, or pre­pared in var­i­ous ways with sug­ar and spices, as con­fec­tionary. When green, it is ei­ther roast­ed, dressed with meat, or sim­ply boiled, and af­ter­wards crushed in a mor­tar so as to form a thick paste, which is used in­stead of bread." Such was the con­sump­tion of this ar­ti­cle that lo­cal pro­duc­tion could not sup­ply the de­mand. Well in­to the 1930s, more than sev­en mil­lion plan­tains and more were im­port­ed from Venezuela to plug the gap. Ba­nanas be­came a vi­tal cash crop in the ear­ly years of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Al­though nev­er pro­duced in the same quan­ti­ties as the Wind­ward Is­lands (which even to­day are heav­i­ly re­liant on this pro­duce), con­sid­er­able acreages were plant­ed es­pe­cial­ly in the rolling hills of the Cen­tral Range. Large ba­nana plan­ta­tions pro­duc­ing fruit main­ly for do­mes­tic con­sump­tion and oc­ca­sion­al ex­port to Eu­rope ex­ist­ed in Tabaquite, Tal­paro, Biche and Rio Claro. At the Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege of Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture (fore­run­ner of UWI St Au­gus­tine) nu­mer­ous ex­per­i­ments were car­ried out in an ef­fort to pro­duce dis­ease-re­sis­tant stock and in­crease yield of both ba­nanas and plan­tains. In the an­nu­al bul­letin from the De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture for 1928, pro­duc­tion ta­bles showed an an­nu­al tal­ly of more than eight mil­lion pounds of ba­nanas be­ing grown."

This se­ries is writ­ten by Nass­er Khan in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing copies of the two Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com

Plan­tain Casse­role

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

3 very ripe plan­tains, un­peeled

2 eggs, beat­en

1/2 tsp ground cin­na­mon

3/4 cup co­conut milk

1/2 cup melt­ed but­ter

1/2 cup sug­ar

Top­ping

1/2 cup all pur­pose flour

1/2 cup melt­ed but­ter

1/2cup brown sug­ar

1/2 cup grat­ed co­conut

METHOD

�2 Pre­heat the oven to 350F.

�2 Bake plan­tains for about 25 min­utes. Cool and peel.

�2 Mash the plan­tains and add eggs, ground cin­na­mon, co­conut milk, 1/2 cup melt­ed but­ter and sug­ar.

�2 Pour in­to a casse­role dish.

�2 In a bowl mix all the top­ping in­gre­di­ents. Sprin­kle over the plan­tain mix­ture and bake at 350F for about 40 min­utes or un­til gold­en brown.

Baked Plan­tain

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

4 very ripe plan­tains

1 cup low fat milk

1/2 cup white or brown sug­ar

4 tb­sp mar­garine

METHOD

�2 Peel plan­tains, place them in a bak­ing dish, and pour the milk and sug­ar over them.

�2 Spread one tb­sp of mar­garine over the top of each plan­tain. Bake at 400 de­grees for about 1/2 hour.

Foufou/cous-cous/pong plan­tain

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

1 lb plan­tain

1 tb­sp but­ter

Salt and pep­per to taste

METHOD

�2 Place un­peeled plan­tain in pot and cov­er with cold wa­ter and bring to a boil for 15 to 30 min­utes, or un­til the plan­tain is cooked through and ten­der. Drain and let cool.

�2 Peel, chop them in­to pieces and place in­to a large bowl with the but­ter, salt and pep­per.

�2 Mash un­til very smooth or squeeze through a pota­to ricer and then mix with the but­ter, salt and pep­per.

�2 Place in­to a large serv­ing bowl. Wet your hands with wa­ter, form in­to a large ball and serve.

Nu­tri­ent ta­ble

The ben­e­fits of eat­ing plan­tain date back to 327 BC when first dis­cov­ered in In­dia by the con­quer­ing Greeks and then spread to Africa by Arab sailors. Here are its nu­tri­tion­al con­tents:

Plan­tain Cal­ci­um (mg) Iron(mg) Potas­si­um (mg) Sodi­um (mg) Zinc (mg) Vit.A Thi­amin (mg) Ri­boflavin (mg) Niacin (mg) To­tal Fo­lacin (�g) Vit. C

Green, raw 9 0.5 500 4 0.1 60 0.1 0.05 0.7 22 15

Green, fried slices 5 0.7 505 740 0.2 95 0.05 0.06 0.7 12 14

Ripe, raw 3 0.6 499 4 0.1 113 0.05 0.05 0.7 22 18

Ripe, cooked 2 0.6 465 5 0.1 91 0.05 0.05 0.8 26 11