aldago

About a week ago I bought a bunch of green bananas that were imported from Columbia. In my experience these types of bananas ripen within a few days and turn yellow and soft with flecks of brown. This bunch refuses to ripen and has stayed hard as a rock even though I put them in the sun during the day. The question is shall I keep them or toss them? They look as though they might be starting to ripen but I don't know if anything was done to them to keep them green longer and so I'm afraid to eat them should they soften. Can anyone give offer me some advice?

xavierdlc61887

open one up and taste it??? maybe those naners stay green but are actually mature....sort of like a tomatillo it stays green even though its ripe

TomK

Plantain?

aldago

Not plaintain

Michael_Andrew

Not sure but I think they harvest bananas in an unripe state then during shipping they subject them to ethylene which ripens them. Maybe yours didn't get the ethylene treatment. I think if you just wait they will ripen on their own and be just fine.

Jack Daw

If you are sure, that this fruit ripens to yellow with flecks and still is only green, there is a plantain trick to do that:
Wrap the whole banana bunch into some plastic bag through which you can see, so that light can go through and let it stay in half shady and half sunny place. As my friends have mentioned, it's so called ethylene therapy, the larger and riper fruit will give off trace amounts of ethylene and thus forcing the other immature fruit in proximty to ripen more rapidly, since ethylene helps to ripen. Can be also artificial ethylene, but in TRACE amounts, so if you plan on artificially adding ethylene, don't make a bomb out of it...



You see, maybe the bunch was also taken too early from the tree and it's totally underdeveloped... So it might never ripen completely. I don't know, is that really even possible? Just a theory. Feel free to experiment.

And yes, they subject all bunches to ethylene therapy during the shippng to the destiantions country. And not only that. If your bananas haven't been ethylen treated, you are lucky, 'cause you may just as well taste the 'real' bananas. People on plantains also use fungicides, antibiotcis and other not quite tasty materials to keep the bunches sterile of any microorganisms. You might as well have got a perfect tasty bunch, without any additives.
In my country, the bananas are quite usually imported still unripe. They will ripen in time, and if not, I eat them just the way they are... and yet I live

And maybe this post is completely wrong, in that case, please, fellas, lemme know.

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Gabe15

Some bananas do not ripen to yellow because of issues in temperature exposure along the supply chain. They will ripen fine, but may only be noticed by how firm they are. If they do not turn yellow, check to see that they are softening. They could end up over ripe and still be green if you are not monitoring them closely.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Caloosamusa

If they won't ripen, make tostones!! They are good when the fruit is about to ripen, but not. There are many recipes, but simply without frills or spices, slice them a quarter to half inch thick (5 or 6) mm, and sautee them medium heat. Take them out mash them, and sautee again.

Best wishes,

jen

Maybe just give it some more time. I cut down mysore bananas from my yard because one had turned yellow and they are the fattest little plump buggers so I know they are mature. Anyway, I put a full hand of about 8 in a brown bag with two apples and 7 days later they were still so flipping GREEN. They really take a LONG TIME to turn yellow. they did eventually turn but they took so long! Good luck.

Jen

lorax

If they've not softened within the next two days or so, put them in a paper bag with an avocado. This will at least soften them. Otherwise - yep, make Patacones or Repe or Verdes or some other tasty green-banana dish.

Out of curiousness, do you know which variety they are? Can you post us a picture? Colombia does occasionally export a kind that ripen inside green skins even on the tree.

aldago

Sorry, don't have a clue as to what type they are. And I can't post a picture because we had them for so long that we finally dumped them. Thanks all for the responses.

revolutionman

I rarely have ripe bananas. We almost always eat them green here. You can make them into plenty of things as suggested below, or you can just boil them, for a while, and eat them with a lil salt and some olive oil. prepared like this they go well with some nice hunks of fried pork or salted cod fish.

Definitely don't toss them though.