A few days ago, a post on instagram caught my attention. It was uploaded by a western food website. They were talking excitedly about discovering the banana flower as a new and exotic ingredient for wellness. The comments that followed in exclamatory disbelief had to be seen to be believed. The banana flower is one ingredient that is available everywhere in our city. And it hardly adds to our grocery bill.
In many parts of the world, the banana flower is unknown. Even in our part of the world, people have to be reminded about it. They must start adding it to their regular menus at home and experiment with it and come up with interesting options to add to our growing repertoire of world cuisine.
I love vazhaipoo vadais and poriyal and relish it and I find the idea of making new things with it exciting.
The banana flower for me is a cause of celebration. The large purplish blue oval when it appears on the tree is itself a cause to cheer. Not only does it mean that the tree is thriving but that soon we are in for a treat!
It took me awhile to realise which part of the flower actually got cooked. And when I did, I made sure I told my younger friends about it. I also shared with them the time-consuming proccess of cleaning the flower before it reaches the table.
That in itself makes it a worthy dish for a special occasion. While we traditionally use buttermilk to prevent the chopped banana flower from discolouring, in some other parts of Asia they use lemon or vinegar to keep it white.
I was inspired to use the vazhaipoo in a Vietnamese salad. The heart of the flower is apparently much like an artichoke centre both in texture and flavour and is cut in thin slices. When paired with a dressing of chopped garlic, fresh red chillies, sugar, lemon juice and some soy or fish sauce, there is a burst of flavours. You could add fresh coriander leaves, thin slivers of coloured bell pepper or purple cabbage and some toasted sesame to the crunchy vazhaipoo and wait for your taste buds to sing.
It is also a heady dose of antioxidants. Serve it in that pretty purple outer petal of the banana flower. Remember to save the petals before you start.
