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Pineapple Vinegar

Pineapple parings should never be thrown away as there is no finer vinegar in the world in flavour and colour than that made from pineapples. The fruit parings (fruit may also be added) should be placed in crocks and covered with water, sugar or syrup being added in quantity according to the condition of the fruit, and allowed to ferment thoroughly. When this has been accomplished-watched and skimmed meantime--the vinegar must be strained from the fruit and placed in jars or bottles.

CHAPTER XX THE BANANA, (Musa, Nat. Ord. Musacea) PERHAPS no form of plant-life, with the exception of the palm, is more typically tropical in appearance than the Musa (including both plantain and banana); none is more widely cultivated through the variations of the warmer climates, and nothing has ever been found in the vegetable kingdom which could with such entire satisfaction or in so wholesale a manner take its place in the countries where it grows. The names of the plantain ("type of the species"), M. paradisiaca, and a variety of it, M. sapientum, or "horse banana," indicate the esteem in which this fruit-food is held its honour "in its own country." The former was so called by the early oriental Christians, it is said, who, venturing boldly to differ from those idealists mentioned in connection with other fruits, betrayed a certain materialistic tendency in imagining the banana to have been the cause of the dissension in the original garden. If it was there was indeed irony in the wisdom of the serpent's choice (or must we credit him with kindly foresight?), as the plantain provides not only food and drink for man and beast but shelter, since the large leaves make an excellent thatch, and also, we are told, readily furnish "table covers and parasols!" "Sapientum" means "of the wise men," in allusion to the choice of the banana as food by the wise men of India-this according to Theophrastus. The banana is certainly, with many hot-country peoples, the "staff of life." It is perhaps the best of all starch-foods and healthful when eaten with an understanding of the fruit's very substantial and sustaining nature. From its composition and wholesome qualities a likeness is directly traceable to wheat bread. The nourishment to be derived from the banana is very great and it has been stated that "one pound of bananas is equal to three pounds of meat in nutriment," which, however, should be considered conditionally or relatively. Lean beef, for instance, contains chiefly protein (no carbohydrates) while bananas are essentially a starchy food, containing an exceedingly small per cent. of protein and made up almost entirely of the carbohydrates.

With children the banana should be cut into bits or mashed, not merely because of the danger of choking on the larger, solid, slippery pieces so often mistakenly given them, but because, as with adults, it is usually not sufficiently masticated, gives trouble in the process of disintegration and so is considered indigestible: the difficulty being plainly with the people and not with the banana. (The M. Cavendishi, or Cavendish, and M. Orientum, or Hart's Choice, or Lady Finger, are the most delicate for eating uncooked).

The luxuriance of the banana plant is typified in the long and broad rich leaves of soft, satiny texture, (though firm and somewhat velvety in the earlier stages). But these elongated, vegetable, elephant's ears soon have their smooth surface disturbed, for the wind, brushing their helpless delicate weight, quickly tears them into fine-frayed ribbons. These, when first unfolding, have their tender, pea-green breadths cut up for cooking like vegetables among some of the tropical peoples.

The banana blossom is one of the most beautiful creations of nature. It consists of fold after fold of close-sheathed, shell-like leaves, under each of which a circle of embryo bananas lies. These leaves, the lining of which is of a deep, delicate maroon, and the outside of dusty, silverygray richness, rise slowly up and back as the little bananas grow, protecting them from too great degree of sun or dampness, finally curling and withering as the stem lengthens and the bananas, filling out gradually, need no longer their care.