116 ON THE BANANA AND PLANTAIN. 



produces banana farina ; the other, when the fruit is completely ripe, 

 produces the platano pasado of the Mexicans, or the platano curado of 

 the province of Neyba, New Granada. 



The farina of the banana is prepared in the most simple manner, 

 by cutting the fruit into slices and drying it in the sun. The whole, 

 coarsely ground and sifted, forms a farina highly esteemed in South 

 America ; it is the " conquin tay " of the colonists of British Guiana. 

 If machines are used in this process, care must be taken that no steel 

 be brought into contact with the fruit, as the gallic acid acting on that 

 metal would discolour the fruit. Implements of nickel, or even of 

 bamboo, should therefore be employed in preference to steel. The 

 quality of the farina depends chiefly on the rapidity with which the 

 slices are dried ; therefore the best way is to roast them in an oven. 

 Eight hours is the time this operation ordinarily takes. When the 

 bananas are taken out they are hard, brittle, translucid, and of a horny 

 appearance. When ground they furnish a white sweet meal, with a smell 

 like fresh hay, or tea, which is very suitable for invalids or children, as 

 it is palatable and also digestible. It is the most nourishing of all 

 introduced into Europe, containing 5 per cent, of azotic matter. 

 Bread can be made from it with the addition of a meal that contains 

 more gluten, for when used alone it is rather stiff and uses badly. 

 Macaroni made from it falls to pieces when put into warm water. This 

 product will, no doubt, acquire great importance in foreign countries 

 when its properties become more known, but the best way of procuring 

 the farina fresh would be to import into Europe the dried slices and 

 grind them. This is a speculation which could not fail to be successful 

 in the colonies, seeing that a bunch of plantains stripped of the skins 

 would give 60 per cent, pulp ; but in general only about 50 per cent, is 

 reckoned on. The fresh pulp furnishes 40 per cent, of dry farina. The 

 yield is usually about 3lbs. per bunch of a mean weight of 25lbs. An 

 acre of plantains would give, on the average, 450 bunches, yielding 

 2,350lbs. of meal (nearly 6,000lbs. per hectare of two and a-half acres.) 

 If this meal were to realise the price of arrowroot, Is. a pound, we 

 shoidd obtain the large return of 300Z. per hectare. But if we allow 

 only IhOl. per hectare, and deducting the expenses incurred, we have a 

 very large and remunerative return for the culture. 



There is another method of utilising this plant, made use of in South 

 America, but it is defective in a great many points as compared with 

 that already noticed. They grate the fruits, having first peeled them, 

 squeeze the moisture out in a press, and bake them, like manioc, in an 

 oven, and by this means obtain a coarse kind of flour. But the nutritive 

 property of this is inferior to that prepared from the dried slices, for no 

 doubt the pressure which extracts the moisture, expels also the soluble 

 albumen, and other nutritious qualities.* 



* See some remarks on plantain flour, vol. i,, p. 195.— Editok. 



