00:00There they are again on your counter. Gone soft, the peels freckling brown, the tops giving way.
00:07And you know by tomorrow half of them will be sitting in a sad little pile by the sink,
00:11too mushy to eat and too good to throw out.
00:15And every time you walk past them you feel that small guilt because you meant to get to them
00:21and now they have beaten you to it.
00:23Most people will tell you the banana is the problem,
00:26that you bought too many, that you should have eaten faster, that fruit just does this
00:32and there's nothing to be done.
00:34That is not the real problem.
00:36The real problem is that nobody ever taught you how a banana ripens
00:40or the few simple things you can do to slow it down so one bunch feeds you for weeks instead
00:47of days.
00:48I am Esther Yoder and I keep house here in Lancaster County the old way, the way it was handed
00:53down to me.
00:55Before I show you, let me say this plainly.
00:58If you want my complete method for running a household on far less, I put it all in one place
01:04for you.
01:05Save $6,000 a year with my complete Amish home saving method.
01:10The link is right here, EliasYoder.com.
01:13Go look when the video is done.
01:16Now one honest word so you trust me.
01:18There is no keeping a banana bright yellow with never a spot for a month.
01:23A banana ripens from the inside the way it was made to and the peel will freckle and darken no
01:29matter what.
01:30But a spotted peel is not a spoiled banana.
01:33Pull it open and the fruit is good, often sweeter.
01:37What I am promising you is this.
01:39You keep eating from one bunch the better part of a month, spots and all, instead of losing half of
01:45it the first week.
01:46And the very ripe ones at the end become bread, nothing wasted.
01:51Here is the one thing most people get wrong, and once you know it, the rest is easy.
01:57A banana ripens from the stem.
01:59That top knuckle where they all join, that crown, that is where the fruit breathes out the very thing that
02:05ripens it and its neighbors.
02:07Cover the tops and you slow the whole bunch down.
02:11Everything you are about to do serves that.
02:14Slow the breath, keep the fruit clean and dry so nothing molds, keep it cool and unbruised.
02:20Here is how you do it, step by step, all cheap and all with what you already have.
02:26First, wash them.
02:27Fill a basin with cool water and stir in about two teaspoons of plain salt until it dissolves.
02:33Wash each banana gently, the whole peel, and let the crown sit in that salt water a minute or two.
02:40This does not stop ripening.
02:42What it does is clean off the dust and handling so nothing on the outside turns to mold while the
02:47fruit keeps.
02:49A clean banana keeps better than a dirty one.
02:52Second, dry them.
02:53This is the step most people skip, and skipping it is why fruit molds.
02:58Take a clean towel and dry every banana all the way, down into the crowns where the stems meet.
03:04Bone dry.
03:06Any drop of water left sitting there is a place for mold to start.
03:10Wet fruit spoils, dry fruit keeps.
03:13Third, this is the one that does the real work.
03:16Wrap the stems.
03:17Trim away any part of the crown that is torn or bruised, then bind that crown up tight with plastic
03:23wrap, sealing the tops away from the air.
03:26You are covering the very place the ripening comes from.
03:29You can do better still.
03:31Break the bananas apart one by one and wrap each single stem on its own.
03:36Separated and individually wrapped, each banana ripens on its own slow clock instead of pushing its neighbors along.
03:43A little more fuss, but it is the difference between a few extra days and a good stretch longer.
03:49Fourth, store them right.
03:50Do not pile them in a heap.
03:53Every place one banana presses on another is a bruise waiting to brown.
03:57If you have a hook, hang them so they touch nothing and the air moves all around.
04:02No hook, lay them out single on a flat dish with space between, somewhere cool and dark and out of
04:08the sun.
04:09A sunny windowsill is the worst place you could put them.
04:12A cool, dim corner of the pantry with a little draft is near the best.
04:17Heat hurries fruit along, cool holds it back.
04:20Now, I should say a word here for honesty's sake, the way I always do.
04:24Some folks will tell you to put bananas in the refrigerator.
04:28In my house, we do not.
04:30And here's the thing you should know.
04:32Cold will turn a banana's peel dark and blotchy fast.
04:37Faster than the counter.
04:38And it frightens people into thinking the fruit is ruined.
04:42It usually is not.
04:44The inside can still be fine.
04:45But the peel goes ugly.
04:47If your bananas are already ripe and you want to stop them right where they are,
04:52the cold of an ice box will hold the fruit.
04:55Dark peel and all.
04:57If they are still green, the cold can stall them so they never sweeten properly.
05:03So know what you are doing before you chill them.
05:05I would rather teach you to manage them on the counter, the way the old women did before any of
05:12us had cold boxes at all.
05:14Do those things.
05:16Clean, dry, wrap the crowns, keep them cool and apart, and you will be eating from one bunch far longer
05:24than you are used to.
05:25The peels will spot.
05:27Let them.
05:28A freckled banana is a sweet banana.
05:31You keep eating the good fruit inside right through and you stop throwing money in the trash every week.
05:38Now let me tell you who would rather you never learned any of this.
05:42Walk into any grocery and look at how the bananas are sold.
05:46They are sold to move.
05:48The store wants that bunch in your cart today and gone from your counter by week's end, soft and spotted
05:55and tossed,
05:56so that you are back on Monday buying another.
05:59A banana that keeps three weeks in your kitchen is a banana you did not come back to buy.
06:05There is no man in a back room scheming this.
06:09It is worse than a scheme, because a scheme you could expose and end.
06:13This is just a system that runs itself.
06:16Everything about how that fruit is grown and shipped and shelved and priced is built around you using it up
06:23fast and returning soon.
06:25And nobody has to coordinate a thing for it to work exactly that way.
06:30The waste is not your failing.
06:32The waste is the whole point for everyone but you.
06:36The old women kept food because food was dear and not to be lost.
06:41You can keep yours the same way and quietly step out of that current.
06:46So here is what I would ask of you.
06:48Go try this on the next bunch you buy.
06:51Wash them, dry them well, wrap the crowns, hang them cool and then come back down to the comments and
06:58tell me how long they held for you.
07:00And tell me where you are while you are at it.
07:03Your county and how old your house is.
07:06I love to know who is out there listening and what kind of roof you are keeping a home under.
07:12We have folks from all over now, in old farm houses and new little apartments alike, and I read what
07:19you write.
07:20And when the last few bananas finally go soft and dark and too ripe to want to peel and eat,
07:27do not you dare throw them out.
07:29That is bread waiting to happen.
07:31Let me tell you how my mother turned the sorriest end of the bunch into the best loaf on the
07:37table.
07:38Take four or five of those very ripe bananas, peel them into a big bowl, and mash them down with
07:45a fork until they are mostly smooth.
07:47The riper and darker they are, the sweeter your bread, so this is the good use for the very ones
07:53people throw away.
07:54Crack in an egg or two, and pour in a little melted butter, about a quarter cup, and stir it
08:01all together.
08:02In another bowl, put about a cup and a half of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of
08:08baking powder, and a good pinch of salt, and stir that.
08:12Then bring the dry into the wet a little at a time, and fold it together until you have a
08:18thick batter.
08:18Do not beat it hard, just bring it together.
08:22Butter a loaf pan, pour it in, and if you want it pretty, lay a few banana slices along the
08:28top.
08:28Cover it loose with a bit of foil and bake it in a moderate oven, around 350 degrees, for a
08:35little better than half an hour, until a straw comes out of the center clean.
08:39Your whole kitchen will go warm and sweet with the smell of it, and you will have turned the very
08:46part of the bunch the grocery counted on you to waste into something your family fights over.
08:51That is the old way in one loaf.
08:54Nothing bought to be thrown out, everything made to last, and what cannot last made into something better.
09:02The people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just starting to remember, and one
09:09of them is that there is no such thing as garbage in a kitchen run with care.
09:14There is only food you have not yet learned the use of.
09:19I will see you next time, when I will show you how I keep a head of lettuce crisp in
09:24the cellar, long past when it ought to have wilted.
09:28Until then, go wrap those banana tops, and write and tell me how they keep.
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