Banana Pudding Lovers Month

home made banana pudding. Photo courtesy of Stu Spivack

Banana Pudding Lovers Month is in November in the United States.

This is a commercially created holiday created by, perhaps naturally, a pudding company. Namely, Rodgers' Pudding Company.

This is a dessert pudding that, of course, uses bananas in it. In its most common variant, it rather resembles an English trifle and is a dish associated with Southern cuisine in the U.S.

To make the pudding, cookies, particularly vanilla wafers or ladyfingers, vanilla flavoured custard and sliced fresh bananas are placed in a dish. These are placed in layers, and then more layers of the same are repeated with the dish then topped with either meringue or whipped cream. This would be a refrigerated dessert, but there are also baked variants of the dish.

There are even two banana pudding festivals; the National Banana Pudding Festival in Tennessee and the Georgia State Banana Pudding Festival in Georgia.

Banana Lover's Day

August 27th is Banana Lover's Day in the United States.

Bananas are a type of fruit that comes in different shapes, sizes and colours, although the most common one that comes to mind is the long, slightly curved type with a yellow skin (which goes to black as it gets overripe) - the Cavendish being the one commonly sold. Bananas have been cultivated for at least 7,000 years and maybe even for 10,000, which would make them one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees. Bananas first originated in south-east Asia; they are believed to have been properly spread from there (there appears to be some diffusion earlier) by the spread of Islam.

Although there isn't an agreed difference between bananas and plantains, in Europe and the US, bananas usually refers to a soft, sweet fruit and plantains to a firmer one that is used for cooking. The interior, soft fruit of the banana is eaten, and the rind is discarded.

In pictures of bananas on a tree, they are often shown growing the wrong way up - they grow in the reverse manner to what would be expected. Bananas are one of the most radioactive fruits, although not to dangerous levels.

National Banana Split Day

National Banana Split Day is on August 25th in the United States.

This dessert dish has bananas and ice cream as its fundamental ingredients. The banana is cut in half lengthways - which is where the "split" part of the name comes from - and then placed in a long dish. Dishes made especially for serving banana splits can be bought.

The classic recipe tops the banana split with scoops of the three traditional ice cream flavours; vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The ice cream is then topped, respectively, with chocolate sauce, strawberry and pineapple. The dish is then garnished with whipped cream, chopped nuts and a maraschino cherry. This is the simplest version; there are more complex recipes.

The first banana split was made in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, by David Evans Strickler in 1904.

National Banana Creme Pie Day

National Banana Creme Pie Day is on March 2nd in the United States.

This is yet another custard filled dessert pie (some cream pies are cakes). The pie is made from a pie shell, which is then filled with the custard - the custard is related to crème patissière, a pastry cream which has starch added to thicken it.

The creme, or cream, pie can have many different flavourings, with fruit being the most popular. In this case, the chosen fruit is banana. The bananas can be blended into the cream (very ripe bananas are best for this) or, alternatively, simply sliced up and placed in the cream. The pie is topped with whipped cream after cooking.

Like many such dishes, it has a strong association with the United States, in particular the American South.

National Banana Bread Day

National Banana Bread Day is on February 23rd in the United States.

This is another food that is pretty much what it sounds like - it's bread made with bananas.

Banana bread started becoming popular in the US in the early to mid twentieth century. It is often a type of quick bread - bread which is leavened with ingredients other than eggs or yeast, such as baking powder, which can result in a bread that is moist and more like a cake than a bread. Some recipes do resemble traditional breads more, and use yeast.

Banana bread is made using bananas that are very ripe; if fact, too ripe for normal usage, which makes it a good way of using them up rather than throwing them away.

Other ingredients can be added to the bread, such as raisins, nuts and chocolate chips.