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druss
05-05-2017, 06:57 AM
Is anyone growing these? Im looking into a couple of the plantains for cooking and maybe beer. Just wondered about other peoples experience. Im looking at kattabunyonyi and butobi.

Gabe15
05-05-2017, 05:49 PM
I grew a few different cultivars for awhile, mostly 'Enyoya' and 'Bakurura', and one unknown one, but have eaten and interacted with many more in Uganda and Rwanda. I can't speak with knowledge about those exact cultivars you mention, but they are all relatively similar, except Mbidde types (beer types) which have a slight bitterness to them and traditionally used for brewing a simple beer-like alcoholic beverage and not usually eaten directly.

They were easy enough to grow in Hawaii, most are not particularly disease or pest resistant at all though. The plants also tend to be very soft it seems, with lots of broken leaves, and exceptionally easy to cut down when harvesting. I've heard mixed reports about trying to grow them in really hot weather, I've never tried, but liked the cool-tropics of Hawaii which is somewhat similar temperature-wise with the East African highlands where they hail from.

I really enjoy the fruit cooked, but many non-East Africans often find it unappealing. The most common traditional way to prepare them in steamed and mashed, commonly called matooke (pronouned MAH-TOH-KAY) in Uganda where the majority are grown. They are also cut into chunks and cooked along with beans and meat, and sometimes roasted as well. I would say overall they are somewhat bland by themselves, but can be a nice starch base for a meal if you are excited that they are bananas, otherwise most folks would probably just prefer potatoes.

Some of them make nice dessert varieties when ripe, but others remain kind of bland and boring.

And as for fermenting them for "beer", the Mbidde types would be fun to play with I suppose, but are not definitely not required to make a suitable alcoholic beverage. Pisang Awak types actually work very well, and are even commonly used in East Africa when the traditional cultivars are not available (which is an increasing problem in some areas due to pest and diseases). So don't wait to get those plants before you start brewing.

Here is a link to a report I did following my undergraduate internship experience with the IITA in Uganda back in 2010. I discuss a lot of the culture surrounding these bananas, and there are some photos too. Mind you this was written 7 years ago, and I've learned a lot since then, but I think it's still mostly accurate:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJithInTYr7UTVyNklHUWY5WEE

As a technical note, they are not Plantains, and really don't resemble Plantains in looks or utility. If you were to try and cook them in ways that are popular to cook Plantains, you'd probably be pretty disappointed. Plantains are a very specific genetic group of bananas. Often in non-technical literature (and occasionally even in poorly-reviewed technical outlets, such as FAO stats) any banana which is cooked is deemed a "plantain", but it is just not the case.

druss
05-05-2017, 06:34 PM
I should have referred to them as landrace bananas really, not plantains which are a particular type. I have a few pacific plantains, but the only true plantain I have is dwarf french. I did have a quick read of the article, nice work. I was curious, did any of your ornata crosses pan out do you know? also the two varieties I was looking at were noted to have beige/pink flesh, did you come across this trait? Its interesting you think their cooking plantains would make an acceptable dessert banana.