Day 8 - How do see them?

They are ripe and supprisingly the "meat" remain firm. Some white fungus appear on the skin of one of them and other appear at the end of bananas next to bunch (?).

We may no longer need to wait before seeing them more ripened. We will cut them and see the 'meat' inside. We'll show you how each day the meat "transform" into until the last day we could no longer eat or cook them.

Full Yellow and Ready to Cook or Eat?

Steam, pounded bananas of getuk from Java

Getuk is among popular snack foods in Indonesia, particularly in Java Island. What is getuk? People mostly make them from cassava being pounded, and then turn them into small loaves by steaming and adding some sugar. But now, and this is the chance, you can make it also out of bananas. And tanduk pisang is the best main ingredient. How do you make it?

Ingredients

• 3 hands of tanduk pisang
• 3 table spoon of sago powder
• 100 gram of ground white sugar (!)
• 100 mililiter of coconut milk
• ¼ tea spoon of salt
• ¼ tea spoon of vanilla powder

Additional ingredients

• Half of mature coconut meat, grated longitudinally
• ¼ tea spoon of salt
• One piece of pandanus leaf
• Banana leaves and, of course, palm leaf ribs to tie (now here people mostly use stapler, what a mess)
  

How to cook?

• Steam the tanduk bananas until well cooked, then take them and while remain warm, crush them and mix them with the ground sugar and the coco milk. Add sago powder, and mix them well.
• Take a piece of banana leaf; wrap the banana doughy mixture while rolling it with banana leaf as each needed. Pinch each with the palm leaf rib. Steam the rolls for 30 minutes. Take them out and let them cool down as they get somehow firmer. Voila, you get the banana getuk!
• Mix the grated coconut with a little bit of salt, mix well, and add the pandanus leaf, then steam it for some time.
• Cut the getuk into small pieces as you like and spread some grated coco on to them before you taste.

Share us your experience. How do they taste?**

Technorati Profile

Day 7: Few remaining green

Indeed, today is the seventh day after the bagja bananas were cut down from the tree. Yet even though many have yellowed, two remain still clearly green, they are all hard if you you press each of their hands. Of course those yellow are slightly softer than the green. They just fell them easily.

You still see them the same fresh after one week.

Interesting.

Even more yellow

Look how they have transformed ..

Little bit yellowish

On 24 February 2008 we also take this picture. See how few of them become slightly yellow.

Makro in Jakarta puts more pressures on farmers

Wholesaler Makro in Jakarta that has already several big outlets now prefers their suppliers to provide products in smaller amount but in a more frequent sending, as compared to what we were asked about two years ago.

This is indeed not really good news for us, marginalized farmers in Indonesia. It seems to reflect worse economic condition of the country.

We actually would like to prepare for delivering about four tons of tanduk bananas each month to Makro, as an initial program of our banana production. We had earlier designed to support such program. We assumed that with stronger focus on certain agricultural products, we build better our strength. Farmers would then have better confidence.

They would have slightly better price. In fact now in the villages they sell between Rp1,000 to Rp1,500 per piece of bananas regardless their measures. You may expect to find these bananas much priced at Makro in Jakarta, 250 kilometer away from the production village, that may cost you even higher than they have at present, i.e. Rp3,500 or even more.

Indeed this banana is bigger. Poor farmers may expect to be paid more, presumably, for their harder works.

However, the marketing policy change at Makro would force us now to think twice or more. We will have to substitute the rest. We would not like to have our truck being loaded less. We would have to find other products. But what? Not clear delivery scheme yet.

Anyone may help?

Seems no change on 22 February 2008

Tanduk bananas on 21 February 2008

We would like to see the "development" of the tanduk bananas until they are rotten and can no longer be eaten. How many days can they keep in store? How are the conditions each days until the "end"?

Kunkun, a farmer from Cikupa village in southern Ciamis show you the bananas he took from his village. He brought them along from Ciamis, about 250 kilometers away to Jakarta.

Tanduk bananas in Lampung

From Carrefour, MT...

In Lampung, the southern tip of Sumatra Island, people sell slightly bigger sized tanduk bananas. One banana tree may have three bunches. Their color is also brighter as compared those we see in Jakarta that mostly come from Bogor, southern satellite district of about 60 kilometers from Jakarta.

We used to see that many bananas being sold in Jakarta's marketplaces come from Lampung province. But we rarely see bananas with this bigger size. What we know about the so-called "Lampung bananas" are small ones. Perhaps, the sellers prefer to keep these bananas being sold in the province since they have most probably less stocks.

They sell average of Rp1,500 per banana, the price we find at traditional marketplace in Jakarta, which means, nevertheless, they have better quality. You can find them easily in front of the train station in Bandar Lampung, the capital of the province. They target retail buyers from among better-off people who prefer to take train --when traveling to other neighboring towns-- connecting Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra, just northern side of Lampung and Bandar Lampung, or the passengers of state-owned Damri shuttle buses connecting Bandar Lampung and Jakarta.

From Carrefour, MT...

See and prove them yourselve

From Carrefour, MT...

Why you need to taste these big bananas?

First, there are just simply big. Second, they remain longer fresh. Even though they look darker as days pass the inside "meat" remain good. Third, they are good and delicious when you fry or boil. Indeed they are mostly not to eat at once.

Believe it or not.