I've come to associate JFI with a celebration of ingredients and recipes - exotic and regular - fit for special occasions and everyday meals. And the more I thought about it, I wanted to feature an ingredient with the same features. And I picked Banana! We use almost every part of banana plant in our meals - raw banana, ripe banana, banana flower, banana stem - in our everyday meals and for special recipes reserved for festivals. And of course, serve food on banana leaves.
Here is a brief history of the origins of banana:
The true origin of Bananas, world's most popular fruit, is found in the region of Malaysia. By way of curious visitors, bananas traveled from there to India where they are mentioned in the Buddhist Pali writings dating back to the 6th century BCE. In his campaign in India in 327 BCE, Alexander the Great relished his first taste of the banana, an usual fruit he saw growing on tall trees. He is even credited with bringing the banana from India to the Western world.Banana has been mentioned in the Buddhist Pali writings dating back to the 6th century BCE as well as in national epic poems of India. The popular name Banana was given by Arabic slave traders.

So let's celebrate banana and the banana plant this month. To participate in this event:
1. Prepare a dish with banana (green or ripe), flower, stem, or any other part of banana plant, and post it on your blog in the month of September. The choice of recipe is not restricted to Indian cuisine.2. Please link to this event announcement.
3. Send me your recipe with the name of the recipe, name of your blog, permalink of the post and a picture (400x250) of your blog post to me at ahaarmail@gmail.com. Please include JFI in your subject line.
4. If you are a non blogger, please e-mail me your recipe and picture and I will include it in the roundup.
5. I would have posted the announcement yesterday, but the logo design took me a day! So feel free to use the logo :)
I am looking forward to your creative ideas, essays and recipes.
Here are some of my previous entries with banana:Banana Bundt Cake
Raw Banana Cutlets
Update: Plantains are starchy, low in sugar variety of bananas which trace their origins to India. The difference between banana and plantain is that plantains have to be cooked before eating. You can also use plantains for this round of JFI.
The logo is gorgeous...worth all your efforts! Love the theme.
ReplyDeleteFantastic choice. I think I its time I tried the banana recipe thats sitting in my to-try folder, for a very long time.
ReplyDeleteyay! i will make that bread finally!!
ReplyDeleteLovely theme for JFI and a great logo to match :). Yummy!
ReplyDeleteI love that logo. Mandira, are raw bananas and plantains the same? If not, can we use plantains?
ReplyDeleteA sweet, perfect fruit for this event. My time has been so limited these days and I post directly to deal with stuff in my column but I am hoping that in some way, I can work in bananas, perhaps, maybe, so that I can enter the event.
ReplyDeleteOh Mandira you are a wonderful gal!! I was just thinking the other day "It's been ages since I used Bananas in my cooking/baking" Her you are choosing a brilliant ingredient. Hugs to you for this.
ReplyDeletewonderful choice and beautiful logo mandira...
ReplyDeletewonderfull choice with a perfect logo! will try my best to participate
ReplyDeleteI already have something ready. :-) and will have some more ready mandira. Lovely logo... and you can count on me for sure!!
ReplyDeleteGood choice, i've already made somthing with banana and was planing to post it, now i have a double reason for doing it
ReplyDeleteGood choice and the logo is fantastic, will surely try to come up with a good dish
ReplyDeleteHi Mandira, I love the logo! I've been wanting an excuse to try finding banana stem. This is perfect! Nice choice with something for everyone :)
ReplyDeleteLovely theme to celebrate the Autumn season. Bananas make great tasting baking goods.
ReplyDeleteGreat choice, Mandira and thanks for hosting the Jihva event.
Thats one versatile fruit considering that you have included all aspects of it.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to try Mocha (banana flower) but am on a time crunch these days, let me see
Lovely logo and theme!! Its one of those ingredients thats always handy and so has a million possibilities.... great choice :-)
ReplyDeleteSmita
Mandira nice theme and a lovely logo. Your mailbox will be overloaded with the recipes. Good luck to you. ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your enthusiastic responses. I am excited and looking forward to hosting this round.
ReplyDeleteMocha, banana stem, raw plantain - they all sound like good choices!
Hi Mandira,
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Logo and Nice theme.
Nice event I will try to paricipate.Have a nice day........
ReplyDeleteGreat theme Mandira, and I love that logo... I'm in :)
ReplyDeleteI love bananas...nice pick for JFI! this will be a roundup to watch out for!:)
ReplyDeleteMandira,
ReplyDeletegood choice for JFI, I am in
Hope you got my post
ReplyDeleteThanks I hope to see all your entries soon.
ReplyDeleteHappy Cook I haven't received your entry though I've seen it. Send it to ahaarmail@gmail.com
Hope you got it now.
ReplyDeleteI just send it the second time.
I can try again :-))
Hey Mandira, just sent my entry for this event!! your logo is brilliantly designed:) great job!!
ReplyDeleteYippee I love bananas...I better get cooking :)
ReplyDeletehi..nice blog..have sent u an entry for JFI-Bananas..Cheers
ReplyDeleteMandira,
ReplyDeleteHave sent an entry, not sure it reached you, pls let me know..
hi mandira..hope u have received my entry...
ReplyDeleteMandira,
ReplyDeletei just sent my JFI Entry .hope u got it.
Fantastic Logo Mandira...I've sent you my entry..hope you've recd it...
ReplyDeleteThank you all for checking. Banana entries are steadily pouring it. It looks like it will be a great event :)
ReplyDeleteGreat logo and choice. I sent my entry and hope you got it.
ReplyDeleteGreat theme,
ReplyDeletebananas are the only fruit I dare to cook with. (I just cannot force myslef into killing all the vitamins in fresh fruits by baking, cooking or other... i ll see what I can come up with
My very first entry for a JFI event. Mandira, thanks for the oppurtunity. Also my sincere thanks to Roopa (Singapore) for suggesting to send my recipe for this event.
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me,when the last date for this event, I am new to blogging, I too like to participate...
ReplyDeleteThankyou somuch for replying,so kind of you,I will be participating for sure:) and thankyou for giving me an oppurtunity to participate!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMandira, I'm new to JFI events and would love to contribute a recipe. When's the last date for submissions. There are only two days left and I'm worried :-(
ReplyDeleteHope you got my mail Mandira.
ReplyDeleteDo visit my blog!:)
Thank you for your entries. It looks delicious.
ReplyDeletezlamushka I'm glad you're joining in. Looking forward to your entry.
Rosh the deadline is Oct 1.
I have just mailed you my submission.
ReplyDeleteBanana chutney. A perfect preserve with curries.
Many thanks for hosting.
fussfreeflavours.blogspot.com
here yopu go Mandira: http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2007/09/vazhaikkai-podimas.html
ReplyDeleteIs it okay to post today ? Just discovered the rules
ReplyDeleteInteresting banana story, thanks.
ReplyDelete