Bananas in Our Little Garden

We all know that bananas are a type of plant whose stems contain a lot of water. This long and wide leafy plant reproduces by dividing. Bananas are a fruit that is familiar to us in Aceh, Sumatra. Maybe also in other parts of the world.

In our village, Dayah Paloh, Lokseumawe, Aceh, Sumatra, bananas are a common crop we have. Each house has a banana tree in the yard. Each garden has banana trees in it, as do coconut trees. Our village is indeed forests and gardens, and we live in it.

Baby Food

Our baby is always given a pinch of ripe banana mixed with a pinch of white rice. Before being given to babies, bananas and rice are mashed with a spoon until smooth and melted. That's what newborn babies in our village eat, besides their mother's milk. Bananas given to babies are crew bananas, also Barangan bananas.

We eat the bananas immediately after they ripen naturally, or we cook them in the leaves—now with plastic—or we let them cook on their own after we take the old bananas from the tree. There are also those who use carbide. That's an unhealthy way.

Boiling Banana Pistils

We never eat bananas when they are unripe, pistil, not naturally ripe. In our village, only animals such as oxen, goats and monkeys eat unripe banana pistils. Weasels and birds just wait for ripe bananas to ripen naturally on the tree, then they eat.

We eat pistil bananas after we boil them. Usually banana pistils are boiled without peeling. We boil together with the skin. After cooking, we peel the pistils of the banana before we eat the contents of the banana.

Sometimes the pistils of the bananas that we boil, we mash them with a mortar and we mix them with the coconut that we have steamed.

Natural Ripe Bananas

Ripe bananas, apart from being eaten raw and fresh, we also boil them. We also boil ripe bananas with their skins. After cooking it boiled, we peel the skin, we cut the inside and we mix it with the coconut that we have steamed. We mix a little salt into the coconut.

I like some types of bananas to eat raw as they naturally ripen. That's banana stuff. Sometimes your banana too. However, now I rarely eat bananas. It's too sweet for me now.

Fried Banana and Chips

We also fry ripe bananas. Ripe bananas are naturally peeled, split and coated in flour, then fried. It's called Fried Banana. Soft, soft.

Sometimes, we also fry pistil bananas. However, it is not called fried bananas, but chips. White bananas are peeled and thinly sliced and then fried. Once cooked it is called chips. Banana crackers.

In Aceh, areas that are famous for banana chips are Bireuen in Bireuen District, and Saree in Aceh Besar District. Even though all of Aceh, as well as all regions that have bananas in several countries in Southeast Asia do that. I don't know which ones outside Aceh are famous for their banana chips.

Banana Salè

Because we have a lot of bananas, our bananas ripen naturally, we split them and dry them in the hot sun. At Dayah Paloh, we call it “pisang tho” (dried banana).

Sometimes, during the rainy season, the sun doesn't show up all day, so we smoke the ripe bananas we split. The term 'salè' (smoking). That's why there is one type of our cultural food, namely "banana salè", one of Aceh's specialties.

Even though we in Dayah Paloh and residents in other places also make "pisang salè", in Aceh the place that is famous for the production of "Pisang Salè" is Panton Labu, North Aceh.

I like the “banana salè”, first of all. I like to eat it after drying it. The color of ripe ramun bananas after drying changes from yellow or white to dark brown. Banana salè is better eaten after being fried. "Banana sale" deep fried. Very nice. That was back then, when I was a teenager. Now, I can't eat "pisang sale" anymore, it's too sweet for me, my gums can hurt if I eat it.

Sparrow Food

Ripe bananas are liked by birds, especially sparrows. If it has time to ripen on a tree, the ripe ones are usually pecked by sparrows, or scratched and eaten by weasels.

Banana Stem Heart

We in Aceh, eat liver from banana fronds. Usually we cook it with chicken curry spices. Not all places in Aceh eat banana fronds. As far as I know, we in Paloh Dayah, around North Aceh, eat it. In Aceh Besar, apparently the people around Lhoong also eat banana fronds. As far as I know people in mainland India also eat banana stems.

Banana Leaf

At our place, old banana leaves are used as rice wrappers. Wrapped rice. Even now, rice is wrapped in paper. Banana leaves are also used to wrap pulut rice, or "bu lukat". Meanwhile, we use young banana leaves to wrap timphan, a type of cake typical of Aceh made from wheat flour, banana, sweet potato, pumpkin, and the like.

We use dried but still slightly wet banana fronds as a binder. Usually the dry but still slightly wet fronds of banana leaves are used to tie cassava sacks or firewood.

Life on Bananas

We are a family of small farmers in this village. We live off the produce of a small garden. Coconuts, sweet potatoes, bananas, papaya leaves are vegetables that we grow and sell at the morning market in Batuphat, about 5 kilometers west of our village.

In the past, our father and we picked those vegetables and gathered them. Our father took him to the morning market, on his bicycle. He pedals his bicycle every day. It keeps his body healthy. However, he died a few years ago at around 91 years old.
Now cassava leaves, papaya leaves, banana leaves, coconut fruit, bananas are picked and bought by vegetable traders in our village. Later, he also sells vegetables to the Batuphat morning market.

Rotting Banana Tree

Several years ago, in the Dayah Paloh area, all the banana trees rotted. Although some of the trees are fertile, the leaves are lush, the trees are fruitful, but the fruit is black. It happened for several years. We have found no cure for it. We don't know if our bananas rotted due to the influence of the tsunami—the tsunami didn't reach there, far away—, or because of the occasional stench of rotting gas. The stench made our heads dizzy instantly. We suspected that was why our trees and bananas were rotting, but there was no proof.

Now, some of the banana trees have improved. However, we had to try to split the banana from the tree, to see if the inside was still white or had turned black.

Several decades ago, there was no banana disease. We are happy, now our bananas have become even better.

Menu from Banana Now

After the tsunami in 2004 and peace in 2005, many types of food from outside Aceh entered Aceh. Including how to process bananas into food. Previously, we only fried bananas in flour. Now, in coffee shops, fried bananas are placed, smeared with chocolate and cheese, and sugar. Ripe bananas are fried in rounds without being split. That's not our style. However, people also love that menu.

The first time I saw it, I felt a little strange.

"Why are ripe bananas fried, they taste naturally sweet, instead they add sweet chocolate, sometimes sugar is added too. The menu is strange, like people don't have enough work. better. Why else add chocolate and sugar?” I used to think, I don't want to eat it. However, now, I want to eat it, even though it's not my favorite dish. I still like to eat bananas, but I can't eat them often, they are too sweet.

Thank you

January 14, 2023

Kind Regards
Thayeb Loh Angen

All Photo Captions: Banana trees in our parents' garden, Paloh Dayah, Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Sumatra. Small, January 13, 2023. Photo by Jamaluddin. With Nikon D7000 Camera, Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm Lens.