O supermarket, why do you vex me so?  Is it not enough that you charge me watermelon by the pound (by the pound!) or that you insist I walk through your displays of cheap liquor and discounted DVD’s of bad Ben Stiller films just to find my way to the cheesemonger’s stand to get delicious gouda?  Must you also put before me green bananas.

Why do you lie to me, why do you deceive me, and make me think that a green banana is one I want?

I swiped this little guide from askville.amazon.com.  It was posted by someone named geminiwench.  I don’t know who she (wench?) is, but I think she knows her bananas.

Green is an unripe banana. They are a little hard and the peel is very thick.

A yellow banana with a little green at one end is the first stage of ripeness. The banana is not yet fully sweet, but it has begun to sweeten more fully.

A fully yellow banana is ripe, the peel has thinned a little and the banana is softer and sweeter.

A yellow banana with a couple brown spots is a full-ripe banana… this is its height of sweetness. These bananas also have the strongest banana flavor.

A banana that is more brown than yellow is over-ripe. Great for baking, but the banana inside is usually beginning to turn and is no longer very pretty to eat,… over-ripe bananas are super sweet and very soft, which is why they are perfect for making banana bread or cookies.

Preach it sister!  Bring it!

I would go one step further, though.  It is the over-ripe banana that you want in your cereal, on your peanut butter and banana sandwich, that you want to fry up like Elvis did, what you put inside pancakes, and that you will desire dipped in chocolate fondu.  Anything other than what is called the over-ripe banana (but what I would call the perfectly ripe banana) is tasteless.

Here is the question, though, that I a getting at.

The supermarket gives me this:

What I want, though, is this:

How long do I have to wait once I get it home before it turns into something truly delicious?  The answer is about a week.  Imagine if this type of injustice were done with other produce?  I’d be buying a live pig instead of sausage, a barrel of grain instead of a loaf of bread, or a fishing pole instead of halibut.  You get the point.  It is time to end this blight upon the banana eating public.

This is a hollaback post (see earlier Stefani reference), so I’d like to know what you think about this great banana lie.

Notes: 

(1) As a public courtesy, I encourage you not to search “banana guide” on the web.  You will find rather unsavory gay porn sites, which are not endorsed by Pastor Greenbean or any right thinking people. 

(2) I really tried to work Raffi’s “Banana Phone” into this post, but just couldn’t make it work.