You sailed 3000 nautical miles from… well… almost anywhere, really… and now you are in the place you always dreamed of… French Polynesia!
You will probably learn very soon that this is a very expensive place. If you have a limited budget, like us, you will soon have to forget stuff like breakfast cereals, peanut butter and any other American product (and you will have to start making your own wine, but this needs a post of its own…).
The things that you will live on in FP are:
1. freshly baked baguettes
2. brie and camember
3. tuna and other local fish
4. bananas
5. grapefruit
6. bananas
7. bananas.
You just cannot be a proper tropical boat without that big bunch of bananas hanging off your bimini/boom/shroud. Bananas are the food from heaven and in the tropics they are dirt cheap. For a bunch (once I counted 107 of them!) you will pay 6 USD. Sometimes you will even get them for free or in exchange for a lipstick…
The first problem will be – how to get them to your dinghy.
Solution number one:
YOU FIND A WILLING HORSE
Solution number two:
YOU FIND A WILLING FIRST MATE
Another thing you will learn very soon is that these bananas will ripen all at once. One evening you will say: “Hmmm… they are still too green…” and the next morning you will panic: “Oh, s**t, we have to eat them NOW!!”
Now, how do you eat 107 bananas in one day? You probably can’t, but you can USE all of them, eat some now and save some for later.
Here are some ideas that I developed in those “bananapanic” days:
Banana chips – BTW the only way of eating bananas when they are still green – fried, salted and served with some sweet chili sauce (optional: add a few pieces of ginger to the frying pan)
Rick’s favorite: Bananas with chocolate sauce and dried coconut
My favorite: bananas fried in butter+cinnamon+sugar+Cointreau or rum (you can even make flambe -set the rum on fire – but your smoke alarm may go off!)
Super healthy breakfast biscuits/cookies: bananas+rolled oats+honey+cinnamon+raisins+wholemeal flour
The Polynesians like to cook them in coconut milk – not bad at all!
Italian version with Nutella and Amaretti biscuits
And of course, the good old…
…banana pancakes!
Then you make some banana bread, a banana cake, you bake a few of them on the BBQ (very good!) and if you have a freezer, you even make banana ice cream (simply smash very ripe bananas and put them in the freezer overnight. You can also add milk/cream/cinnamon/cocoa/coconut milk… be creative!)
At the end of the day you will be exhausted – AND YOU WILL STILL HAVE 62 BANANAS TO GO!!!!
At that point, there is only one thing that can save you:
1. Cut the bananas
2. Arrange them on the drying shelves
3. Hang them on deck for 2 or 3 days (or down below when it is raining)
4. EAT THEM! Or… even better… get a new bunch of fresh ones and save the dry bananas for the coral atolls with no fruit
SOLAR FOOD DEHYDRATOR
I seldom recommend any gear, but this is definitely something you should buy if you are leaving for the tropics! We love to dry apples, tomatoes, mangoes and papayas too, and it is also possible to make jerky, dry fish or use it for sprouting…
You may be wondering if you will get bored of eating bananas all the time… the answer is NO. They will become your favorite food, especially on passage, when you can have ready-to-eat snacks on deck. It certainly cuts down the amount of time the crew has to spend in the galley – which for me is reason enough to NEVER leave port without them.
SEE YOU IN THE TROPICS!
p.s. ….did I mention I love bananas? ?
English
Slovensko
Italiano
This is excellent!! You are a very creative monkey ? miss you guys xoxo
are you guys filthy rich yet?
Haha! Well on our way, of course ?
btw any other suggestions/recipes are very welcome… I am running out of ideas!
Rick and Jasna I love it! Good thing you like monkey food. Looks like your having no fun at all. The wee sprogs say hello to you too.
Thanks Brooks – are you coming over? Regards to the ankle biters
I think were a few years out still. Have a great time!
Funny! I just recently wrote a thing about using up bananas – hadn’t seen this post!! Great minds & all that ? Just came to it via your new ‘fruit bars’ blog post. It’s got some great yummy-looking ideas! Could I put a link to it in my post?? Haven’t tried the solar drying idea – will have to look into that ?
Hi Sara!
You are more than welcome to post a link in your post. Us monkeys have to help each other out ? Drying is really a great way of preserving fruit – give it a try and let me know how it goes…
My fave banana snack – works for breakfast lunch and dinner:
banana, peanut butter, cucumber, coriander and fresh chilli all on a wrap. All easily available in the tropics except for the wraps which will have needed to come from Panama, or mexico…
oh, and the peanut butter of course. Can also be replaced with tahini.
YUM