chong

Very pretty! Reminds me of the clumps of them behind our house at Ft. McKinley in the Philippines. They were next to several Saba and Butuan clumps. They were pretty much the same height and girth as the Saba.

It was a chore to separate/peel the hands to make banana chips. We always ignored the fruit of the Sabang Dikit (Saba stuck-together, our name for M. Praying Hands) and never tell our Mom, until they are ripe. If she finds out, she'll have us cut it down while green and have us peel the hands carefully to minimize cutting into the pulp, to make banana chips. The chips keep longer without refrigeration, obviously. When they are ripe, they are easy to peel, but we have to cook them right away.

Funny, over here, banana chips are salted. We used to sprinkle ours with sugar after frying. Or, if I was ambitious, I'd even glaze them. But never salted them.