Red Bananas - this may sound silly but...

[Rawkinlocs]

...I went to the co-op to get my week's worth of food. So, I decided to try something different and got a bunch of those little red bananas I always see in there. Now here's the silly part, I am scared to peel one and try it! For some reason, sometimes I get a little leary about trying new things.

So, can anyone here kinda prep me for what I'm about to embark upon? How do I know if it's ripe enough? How much do they differ, in taste, from regular bananas? Are they good? Is the texture any different?

Thanks for any responses! :o

[Wendee]

Peel it, peel it, LOL!! Now I am dying to find out what it looks, like,too!!

This reminds me of a cheer from high school: "Go Banannas B-A-N-A-N-N-A!

GO RAWKINLOCK GO!!!!:D

[sweetcharade]

They are awesome and my kids love them!! They taste just like the yellow ones and the color is a little pink inside. You'll love them I'm sure!

[Ama]

I've never seen a red banana.... I just did a google search... interesting. I wonder what makes them red?

[Stina]

Once, for the first time, I bought some of those cute little red bananas and they were still hard. Never softened up and I chucked 'em out after a couple of weeks. What's up with that?

[Revvell]

*peeks in* Cherie? You still there? :D

[Rawkinlocs]

LOL! Ohhhhkaaaay...so THAT was definitely NOT ripe!

I did a little Googling on them too and found out that they're *supposed* to be ripe when you see a few brown spots on them. So, these here DO have a few brown spots on them but they are hard and it was hard to peel like plantain. When I finally got some of the peel off, I broke a piece off and it snapped! (that shoulda been my sign there!) but I proceeded to taste it because I thought maybe it was supposed to be like that and that it'd be hard, but sweet.

NOPE! PURE starch! Made my mouth dry out (kinda like how persimmons do when those are not fully ripe yet) - so needless to say that lil' red 'nana is in the trash. I only hope that the rest of them will ripen up for me lest I end up doing the Stina! LOL

Thanks for your replies all!

[luckitri]

OK thank you for saving me that trouble!

[JGex]

lol.... sounds like my first go of them. I buy them and let them sit for a week or 2 when they are starting to turn black around the stem. Then they are soft, and sweet and just the right size for a single smoothie with young coconut, cacao, maca and ice. Mmmm mm good!

[luckitri]

OK now I know what to do! Don't want to do the Stina! :D

[Wendee]

See, R, that wasn't so bad, now was it?:o

[juliebove]

I've never had any luck with those. Years ago I bought them several times. They never seemed to get ripe. Ever! They went from pretty much hard as a rock to eventually rotted. Seemingly nothing in between. So I gave up on them.

[Dimond]

I had received red bananas when there were no regular ones available & they were almost the same. They were smaller though & didn't last as long. I definitely like the regular better.

[RawChelle]

I've had them and they are quite good as long as they are ripe. The taste isn't too different from a regular banana just a little..maybe sweeter. They have to have quite a lot of black spots and soft before they are ripe. I found out the hard way too of finding out how gross they taste when they are just pure startch..it's gross. When it looks like what a regular banana would look like when it is over ripe is when the red ones look like when they are just ripe if that even made sence.