It Came From the Flea Market!

I've always been on the lookout for unusual fruit, but one day my wife came home with a banana fritter from her Filipino coworker and I had to know where she found the creamy and carmelized banana used in the recipe. The common Dwarf Cavendish bananas from the grocery store are chalky and bland, but this banana had a complex flavor that I unfortunately enjoyed too quickly before realizing I ate my whole share. I had to find more of this mystery banana!


When my wife tried to crack the banana code, her coworker simply relied "Those are Filipino bananas! Those are our bananas!" Eventually my faithful spy got her fellow cubicle prisoner to talk (to this day she refuses to divulge how she got the information) and she then returned with the secret of the fritter's origin: It came from the flea market!

The Elusive Saba Bananas

The 'House of Fleas' flea market wasn't too exciting. I did find an Asian vendor selling banana, rice and guava plants, but apart from that I had to trudge through displays of cabbage patch kids, expired shampoo and hubcaps to reach my quarry; A large stall filled with exotic fruits and vegetables manned by a diverse staff with wonderfully thick accents. In this decidedly un-cosmopolitan city of Jacksonville, I was surprised to hear a cacophony of languages spoken with their infinite intonations and lilts as if I was at a bazaar far from home. To the expatriate Navy wives however, this was probably the very closest thing to home around.

Rambutan

Giddy with excitement, I bounced back and forth between carefully stacked banana flowers, bitter melons and knobbly gourds before floating euphorically to the sweeter scented half of the stall. Bright red rambutans with soft and flexible 'hairs' seemed to jostle around in the box as if they were freshly picked from a coral reef. Huge jackfruits sat behind the dealers, looking for all the world like reptilian watermelons waiting to unroll and greet me with a dazed smile, but it was me with the dopey expression. 

At the end of the stall I saw a Filipino woman carefully weighing big blocky stubs of bananas in her hands, and a faint memory arose of seeing these trapezoidal nanners online, affirming that these were indeed the bananas I sought. On my first trip to the flea market I bought a heavy bunch of what I later found to be Saba bananas, along with rambutans, tomatoes (boring, right?), June plums and a white guava, all for a pittance. On the way home we stopped by a Fresh Market and snagged a dragonfruit, which were sold out at the flea market. It was a surprising find for a chain grocer.

Dragonfruit

June Plum

Thai White Guava

That night we had my sister over for dinner and made her a Thai curry dish, but only after offering her a psychadelic appetizer of dragonfruits and rambutans, which she ate before I had time to tell her much about them. The grand finale however, was a dessert of carmelized banana fritters pan fried in brown sugar and coconut milk. They were delicious. Now I know that my wife's coworker referred to them as "our bananas" but I really hope she doesn't mind sharing.

Our cornucopia of tropical fruit, served up on a banana leaf from the garden

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