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Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni ( or , ; 29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian director and filmmaker. He is best known for his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents" —L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962)—and the English-language film Blowup (1966). His films have been described as "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent art cinema. Antonioni received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, being the only director to have won the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Golden Leopard.

Early life
Antonioni was born into a prosperous family of landowners in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna. He was the son of Elisabetta (née Roncagli) and Ismaele Antonioni. The director explained to Italian film critic Aldo Tassone:

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As a child, Antonioni was fond of drawing and music. A precocious violinist, he gave his first concert at the age of nine. Although he abandoned the violin with the discovery of cinema in his teens, drawing would remain a lifelong passion. "I have never drawn, even as a child, either puppets or silhouettes but rather facades of houses and gates. One of my favourite games consisted of organizing towns. Ignorant in architecture, I constructed buildings and streets crammed with little figures. I invented stories for them. These childhood happenings—I was eleven years old—were like little films."

Upon graduation from the University of Bologna with a degree in economics, he started writing for the Ferrara newspaper Il Corriere Padano in 1935 as a film journalist.

In 1940, Antonioni moved to Rome, where he worked for Cinema, the official Fascist film magazine edited by Vittorio Mussolini. However, Antonioni was fired a few months afterwards. Later that year, he enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia to study film technique but left after three months. He was subsequently drafted into the army, and survived being condemned to death as a member of the Italian Resistance.

Early film work
In 1942, Antonioni co-wrote A Pilot Returns with Roberto Rossellini and worked as assistant director on Enrico Fulchignoni's I due Foscari. In 1943, he travelled to France to assist Marcel Carné on Les visiteurs du soir and began a series of short films with Gente del Po (1943), a story of poor fishermen of the Po valley. When Rome was liberated by the Allies, the film stock was transferred to the Fascist "Republic of Salò" and could not be recovered and edited until 1947. The complete footage was never retrieved. These films were neorealist semi-documentary studies of the lives of working class people.

However, Antonioni's first feature Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair, 1950) broke away from neorealism by depicting the middle classes. He continued to do so in a series of other films: I vinti (The Vanquished, 1952), a trio of stories, each set in a different country (France, Italy and England), about juvenile delinquency; La signora senza camelie (The Lady Without Camellias, 1953) about a young film star and her fall from grace; and Le amiche (The Girlfriends, 1955) about middle-class women in Turin. Il grido (The Outcry, 1957) was a return to working class stories, depicting a factory worker and his daughter. Each of these stories is about social alienation.

International recognition
In Le Amiche (1955), Antonioni experimented with a radical new style: instead of a conventional narrative, he presented a series of apparently disconnected events, and used long takes as part of his style. Antonioni returned to their use in L'avventura (1960), which became his first international success. At the 1960 Cannes Film Festival it received a mixture of cheers and boos, but won a Jury Prize and became popular in arthouse cinemas around the world. La notte (1961), starring Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni, and L'Eclisse (1962), starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti, followed L'avventura. These three films are often referred to as a trilogy. La notte won the Golden Bear at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival, His first color film, Il deserto rosso (The Red Desert, 1964), deals with similar themes, and is sometimes considered the fourth film of the "trilogy". All four films featured Vitti, his romantic partner at the time.

Antonioni then signed a deal with producer Carlo Ponti that would allow artistic freedom on three films in English to be released by MGM. The first, Blowup (1966), was an international critical and commercial success and won the Palme d'Or at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. Set in Swinging London, the film starred David Hemmings as a fashion photographer and was loosely based on a short story by Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar. The second film, Zabriskie Point (1970), was set in America and followed the counterculture. The soundtrack featured music from Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones. However, Zabriskie Point was a critical and commercial failure, and has been called "the worst film ever made by a director of genius". The third, The Passenger (1975), starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, received critical praise but did poorly at the box office.

In 1966, Antonioni drafted a treatment entitled "Technically Sweet", which he later developed into a screenplay with Mark Peploe, Niccolo Tucci, and Tonino Guerra, with plans to begin filming in the early 1970s with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. On the verge of production in the Amazon jungle Ponti suddenly withdrew support and the project was abandoned, with Nicholson and Schneider going forward to star in The Passenger. In 2008, "Technically Sweet" became an international group exhibition curated by Copenhagen-based artists Yvette Brackman and Maria Finn, in which the creations of artists, working in multiple mediums and based on Antonioni's manuscript, were displayed in New York. One of these was the short film "Sweet Ruin", directed by Elisabeth Subrin and starring Gaby Hoffmann. Antonioni's widow Enrica and director André Ristum announced plans to produce a film based on the screenplay, with filming in Brazil and Sardinia to begin in 2023.

In 1972, Antonioni was invited by to China to film the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. The resulting documentary, Chung Kuo, Cina, was strongly condemned by the Chinese authorities as "anti-Chinese" and "anti-communist". It was first shown in China on 25 November 2004 in Beijing, with a film festival hosted by the Beijing Film Academy to honour the works of Antonioni. The film is now well-regarded by Chinese audiences, particularly by people who lived during the Cultural Revolution.

Later career
In 1980, Antonioni directed Il mistero di Oberwald (The Mystery of Oberwald), based on Jean Cocteau's play, L'Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle With Two Heads). Featuring Monica Vitti in the lead, the film delves into an experimental approach to color enhancement through electronic treatment. The process involves initially capturing the footage on video and transferring it to 35mm film stock during post-production.

Identificazione di una donna ("Identification of a Woman",) a 1982 film shot in Italy, explores the recurring themes found in his Italian trilogy. In 1985, Antonioni suffered a stroke that left him aphasic and partly paralyzed. Despite his incapacity to speak or write, Antonioni continued to direct films including Beyond the Clouds (1995), for which Wim Wenders was hired as a back-up director to shoot various scenes. As Wenders has explained, "without someone else, no film of his would find insurers." During the editing, however, Antonioni rejected almost all of the material filmed by Wenders except for a few short interludes. They shared the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival with Cyclo.

In 1994, he was given an Honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his place as one of cinema's master visual stylists." Presented to him by Jack Nicholson, the statuette was later stolen by burglars and had to be replaced. Previously, Antonioni had received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Blowup (1967).

Antonioni's final film, directed when he was in his 90s, was a segment of the anthology film Eros (2004), entitled Il filo pericoloso delle cose (The Dangerous Thread of Things). The short film's episodes are framed using a series of enigmatic paintings by Antonioni, a luxury sports car that has difficulty negotiating the narrow lanes and archaic stone bridges of the provincial town setting, a bikini-clad women performing a cryptic choreography on a beach, and the song "Michelangelo Antonioni", composed and sung by Caetano Veloso. The film was not well-received internationally. In America, Roger Ebert claimed it was neither erotic nor about eroticism. The U.S. DVD release of the film includes another 2004 short film by Antonioni, Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (The Gaze of Michelangelo).

Antonioni died in Rome, aged 94, on 30 July 2007, the same day as renowned Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman. Antonioni lay in state at City Hall in Rome, where a large screen showed black-and-white footage of him among his film sets and behind-the-scenes. He was buried in his hometown of Ferrara on 2 August 2007.

Style and themes
Critic Richard Brody described Antonioni as "the cinema's exemplary modernist" and one of its "great pictorialists—his images reflect, with a cold enticement, the abstractions that fascinated him." AllMovie stated that "his films—a seminal body of enigmatic and intricate mood pieces—rejected action in favor of contemplation, championing image and design over character and story." Stephen Dalton of the British Film Institute described Antonioni's influential visual hallmarks as "extremely long takes, striking modern architecture, painterly use of colour, [and] tiny human figures adrift in empty landscapes," noting similarities to the "empty urban dreamscapes" of surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico. Film historian Virginia Wright Wexman notes the slowness of his camera and the absence of frequent cuts, stating that "he forces our full attention by continuing the shot long after others would cut away." Antonioni is also noted for exploiting colour as a significant expressive element in his later works, especially in Il deserto rosso, his first colour film.

Antonioni's plots were experimental, ambiguous, and elusive, often featuring middle-class characters who suffer from ennui, desperation, or joyless sex. Film historian David Bordwell writes that in Antonioni's films, "Vacations, parties and artistic pursuits are vain efforts to conceal the characters' lack of purpose and emotion. Sexuality is reduced to casual seduction, enterprise to the pursuit of wealth at any cost." The New Yorker wrote that "Antonioni captured a new bourgeois society that shifted from physical to intellectual creation, from matter to abstraction, from things to images, and the crisis of personal identity and self-recognition that resulted," calling his 1960s collaborations with Monica Vitti "a crucial moment in the creation of cinematic modernism." Richard Brody stated that his films explore "the way that new methods of communication—mainly the mass media, but also the abstractions of high-tech industry, architecture, music, politics, and even fashion—have a feedback effect on the educated, white-collar thinkers who create them," but noted that "he wasn't nostalgic about the premodern."

Wexman describes Antonioni's perspective on the world as that of a "postreligious Marxist and existentialist intellectual." In a speech at Cannes about L'Avventura, Antonioni said that in the modern age of reason and science, mankind still lives by "'a rigid and stereotyped morality which all of us recognize as such and yet sustain out of cowardice and sheer laziness [...] We have examined those moral attitudes very carefully, we have dissected them and analyzed them to the point of exhaustion. We have been capable of all this, but we have not been capable of finding new ones.'" Nine years later he expressed a similar attitude in an interview, saying that he loathed the word 'morality': "When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them." Critic Roland Barthes claimed that Antonioni's approach "is not that of a historian, a politician or a moralist, but rather that of a utopian whose perception is seeking to pinpoint the new world, because he is eager for this world and already wants to be part of it." He added that his art "consists in always leaving the road of meaning open and as if undecided."

Reception and legacy
Bordwell explains that Antonioni was extremely influential on art films: "More than any other director, he encouraged filmmakers to explore elliptical and open-ended narrative." The Guardian described him as, "in essence, a director of extraordinary sequences," and advised viewers to "forget plotting, characters or dialogue, his import is conveyed in absolutely formal terms."

Film director Akira Kurosawa considered Antonioni one of the most interesting filmmakers. Stanley Kubrick listed La Notte as one of his ten favorite films in a 1963 Poll. Andrei Tarkovsky was deeply influenced by Antonioni, especially for the development of his film Nostalghia. In an interview with Serge Kaganski in 2004, Jean-Luc Godard judges that Antonioni is the filmmaker who has most influenced contemporary cinema. Wim Wenders considered Antonioni as a master and the two collaborated as directors for the film Beyond the Clouds. Miklós Jancsó considers Antonioni as his master. American director Martin Scorsese paid tribute to Antonioni following his death in 2007, stating that his films "posed mysteries—or rather the mystery, of who we are, what we are, to each other, to ourselves, to time. You could say that Antonioni was looking directly at the mysteries of the soul." American directors Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma paid homage to Antonioni in their own films.

Antonioni's spare style and purposeless characters, however, have not received universal acclaim. Ingmar Bergman stated in 2002 that while he considered the Antonioni films Blowup and La notte masterpieces, he found the other films boring and noted that he had never understood why Antonioni was held in such esteem. Orson Welles regretted the Italian director's use of the long take: "I don't like to dwell on things. It's one of the reasons I'm so bored with Antonioni—the belief that, because a shot is good, it's going to get better if you keep looking at it. He gives you a full shot of somebody walking down a road. And you think, 'Well, he's not going to carry that woman all the way up that road.' But he does. And then she leaves and you go on looking at the road after she's gone."

American actor Peter Weller, whom Antonioni directed in Beyond the Clouds, explained in a 1996 interview: "There is no director living except maybe Kurosawa, Bergman, or Antonioni that I would fall down and do anything for. I met Antonioni three years ago in Taormina at a film festival. I introduced myself and told him that I adored his movies, his contributions to film, because he was the first guy who really started making films about the reality of the vacuity between people, the difficulty in traversing this space between lovers in modern day ... and he never gives you an answer, Antonioni—that's the beautiful thing."

Short films

 * Gente del Po (People of the Po Valley, filmed in 1943, released in 1947) – 10 minutes
 * N.U. (Dustmen, 1948) – 11 minutes
 * Oltre l'oblio (1948)
 * Roma-Montevideo (1948)
 * Lies of Love (L'amorosa menzogna, 1949) – 10 minutes
 * Sette canne, un vestito (Seven Reeds, One Suit, 1949) – 10 minutes
 * Bomarzo (1949)
 * Ragazze in bianco (Girls in White, 1949)
 * Superstizione (Superstition, 1949) – 9 minutes
 * La villa dei mostri (The House of Monsters, 1950) – 10 minutes
 * La funivia del Faloria (The Funicular of Mount Faloria, 1950) – 10 minutes
 * Tentato suicido (When Love Fails, 1953) – segment in L'amore in città (Love in the City)
 * Il delitto (April 20, 1962) - segment in Il fiore e la violenza (The Flower and the Violence)
 * Il provino (1965) – segment in I tre volti
 * Inserto girato a Lisca Bianca (1983) – 8 minutes
 * Kumbha Mela (1989) – 18 minutes
 * Roma (Rome, 1989) – segment in 12 registi per 12 città, for the 1990 FIFA World Cup
 * Noto, Mandorli, Vulcano, Stromboli, Carnevale (Volcanoes and Carnival, 1993) – 8 minutes
 * Sicilia (1997) – 9 minutes
 * Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (The Gaze of Michelangelo, 2004) – 15 minutes
 * Il filo pericoloso delle cose (The Dangerous Thread of Things, 2004) – segment in Eros

Awards and honors

 * Academy Honorary Award (1995)
 * Berlin International Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (1961)
 * Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear (1961), for La Notte
 * Bodil Award for Best European Film (1976), for The Passenger
 * British Film Institute Sutherland Trophy (1960), for L'Avventura
 * Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize (1960), for L'Avventura
 * Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize (1962), for Eclipse
 * Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or (1967), for Blowup
 * Cannes Film Festival 35th Anniversary Prize (1982), for Identification of a Woman
 * David di Donatello Award for Best Director (1961), for La Notte
 * David di Donatello Luchino Visconti Award (1976)
 * European Film Awards Life Achievement Award (1993)
 * Flaiano Prize Career Award in Cinema (2000)
 * French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Foreign Film (1968), for Blowup
 * Giffoni Film Festival François Truffaut Award (1991)
 * Giffoni Film Festival Golden Career Gryphon (1995)
 * International Istanbul Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award (1996)
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best Documentary (1948), for N.U.
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best Documentary (1950), for Lies of Love
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Special Silver Ribbon (1951), for Story of a Love Affair
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best Director (1956), for Le Amiche
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best Director (1962), for La Notte
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best foreign film Director (1968), for Blow up
 * Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon for Best Director (1976), for The Passenger
 * Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director (1968), for Blowup
 * Locarno International Film Festival Prize (1957), for Il Grido
 * Montreal World Film Festival Grand Prix Special des Amériques (1995)
 * National Society of Film Critics Special Citation Award (2001)
 * National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (2001), for Blowup
 * Palm Springs International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award (1998)
 * Valladolid International Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize for Short Film (2004), for Michelangelo Eye to Eye
 * Venice Film Festival Silver Lion (1955), for Le Amiche
 * Venice Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (1964), for Red Desert
 * Venice Film Festival Golden Lion (1964), for Red Desert
 * Venice Film Festival Career Golden Lion (1983)
 * Venice Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (1995), for Beyond the Clouds (with Wim Wenders)
 * Venice Film Festival Pietro Bianchi Award (1998)

title: Michelangelo Antonioni


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Banana

A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color, and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a peel, which may have a variety of colors when ripe. It grows upward in clusters near the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible seedless (parthenocarp) cultivated bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, or hybrids of them.

Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia; they were probably domesticated in New Guinea. They are grown in 135 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make banana paper and textiles, while some are grown as ornamental plants. The world's largest producers of bananas in 2022 were India and China, which together accounted for approximately 26% of total production. Bananas are eaten raw or cooked in recipes varying from curries to banana chips, fritters, fruit preserves, or simply baked or steamed.

Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between dessert "bananas" and cooking "plantains": this works well enough in the Americas and Europe, but it breaks down in Southeast Asia where many more kinds of bananas are grown and eaten. The term "banana" is applied also to other members of the genus Musa, such as the scarlet banana (Musa coccinea), the pink banana (Musa velutina), and the Fe'i bananas. Members of the genus Ensete, such as the snow banana (Ensete glaucum) and the economically important false banana (Ensete ventricosum) of Africa are sometimes included. Both genera are in the banana family, Musaceae.

Banana plantations are subject to damage by parasitic nematodes and insect pests, and to fungal and bacterial diseases, one of the most serious being Panama disease which is caused by a Fusarium fungus. This and black sigatoka threaten the production of Cavendish bananas, the main kind eaten in the Western world, which is a triploid Musa acuminata. Plant breeders are seeking new varieties, but these are difficult to breed given that commercial varieties are seedless. To enable future breeding, banana germplasm is conserved in multiple gene banks around the world.

Description
The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure called a corm. Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy with a treelike appearance, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a pseudostem composed of multiple leaf-stalks (petioles). Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as it is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage and is not compacted. They are fast-growing plants, with a growth rate of up to 1.6 m per day.

The leaves of banana plants are composed of a stalk (petiole) and a blade (lamina). The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem, the edges are forced apart. Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the variety and growing conditions. Most are around 5 m tall, with a range from 'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around 3 m to 'Gros Michel' at 7 m or more. Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 2.7 m long and 60 cm wide. When a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing new leaves and begins to form a flower spike or inflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until eventually it emerges at the top. Each pseudostem normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the "banana heart". After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole is perennial. The inflorescence contains many petal-like bracts between rows of flowers. The female flowers (which can develop into fruit) appear in rows further up the stem (closer to the leaves) from the rows of male flowers. The ovary is inferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower parts appear at the tip of the ovary.

The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster called a bunch, made up of around 9 tiers called hands, with up to 20 fruits to a hand. A bunch can weigh 22 –.

The fruit has been described as a "leathery berry". There is a protective outer layer (a peel or skin) with numerous long, thin strings (Vascular bundles), which run lengthwise between the skin and the edible inner portion. The inner part of the common yellow dessert variety can be split lengthwise into three sections that correspond to the inner portions of the three carpels by manually deforming the unopened fruit. In cultivated varieties, fertile seeds are usually absent.

Phylogeny
A 2011 phylogenomic analysis using nuclear genes indicates the phylogeny of some representatives of the Musaceae family. Major edible kinds of banana are shown in boldface.

 * ‡ Many cultivated bananas are hybrids of M. acuminata x M. balbisiana (not shown in tree).

Work by Li and colleagues in 2024 identifies three subspecies of M. acuminata, namely sspp. banksii, malaccensis, and zebrina, as contributing substantially to the Ban, Dh, and Ze subgenomes of triploid cultivated bananas respectively.

Taxonomy

The genus Musa was created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The name may be derived from Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor Augustus, or Linnaeus may have adapted the Arabic word for banana, mauz. The ultimate origin of musa may be in the Trans–New Guinea languages, which have words similar to "#muku"; from there the name was borrowed into the Austronesian languages and across Asia, accompanying the cultivation of the banana as it was brought to new areas, via the Dravidian languages of India, into Arabic as a Wanderwort. The word "banana" is thought to be of West African origin, possibly from the Wolof word banaana, and passed into English via Spanish or Portuguese.

Musa is the type genus in the family Musaceae. The APG III system assigns Musaceae to the order Zingiberales, part of the commelinid clade of the monocotyledonous flowering plants. Some 70 species of Musa were recognized by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families ; several produce edible fruit, while others are cultivated as ornamentals.

The classification of cultivated bananas has long been a problematic issue for taxonomists. Linnaeus originally placed bananas into two species based only on their uses as food: Musa sapientum for dessert bananas and Musa paradisiaca for plantains. More species names were added, but this approach proved to be inadequate for the number of cultivars in the primary center of diversity of the genus, Southeast Asia. Many of these cultivars were given names that were later discovered to be synonyms.

In a series of papers published from 1947 onward, Ernest Cheesman showed that Linnaeus's Musa sapientum and Musa paradisiaca were cultivars and descendants of two wild seed-producing species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, both first described by Luigi Aloysius Colla. Cheesman recommended the abolition of Linnaeus's species in favor of reclassifying bananas according to three morphologically distinct groups of cultivars – those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics of Musa balbisiana, those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics of Musa acuminata, and those with characteristics of both. Researchers Norman Simmonds and Ken Shepherd proposed a genome-based nomenclature system in 1955. This system eliminated almost all the difficulties and inconsistencies of the earlier classification of bananas based on assigning scientific names to cultivated varieties. Despite this, the original names are still recognized by some authorities, leading to confusion.

The accepted scientific names for most groups of cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata Colla and Musa balbisiana Colla for the ancestral species, and Musa × paradisiaca L. for the hybrid of the two.

An unusual feature of the genetics of the banana is that chloroplast DNA is inherited maternally, while mitochondrial DNA is inherited paternally. This facilitates taxonomic study of species and subspecies relationships.

Informal classification
In regions such as North America and Europe, Musa fruits offered for sale can be divided into small sweet "bananas" eaten raw when ripe as a dessert, and large starchy "plantains" or cooking bananas, which do not have to be ripe. Linnaeus made this distinction when naming two "species" of Musa. Members of the "plantain subgroup" of banana cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin America, correspond to this description, having long pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as "true" plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas.

The cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group, the East African Highland bananas. Further, small farmers in Colombia grow a much wider range of cultivars than large commercial plantations do, and in Southeast Asia—the center of diversity for bananas, both wild and cultivated—the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" does not work. Many bananas are used both raw and cooked. There are starchy cooking bananas which are smaller than those eaten raw. The range of colors, sizes and shapes is far wider than in those grown or sold in Africa, Europe or the Americas. Southeast Asian languages do not make the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" that is made in English. Thus both Cavendish dessert bananas and Saba cooking bananas are called pisang in Malaysia and Indonesia, kluai in Thailand and chuối in Vietnam. Fe'i bananas, grown and eaten in the islands of the Pacific, are derived from a different wild species. Most Fe'i bananas are cooked, but Karat bananas, which are short and squat with bright red skins, are eaten raw.

Domestication
The earliest domestication of bananas (Musa spp.) was from naturally occurring parthenocarpic (seedless) individuals of Musa banksii in New Guinea. These were cultivated by Papuans before the arrival of Austronesian-speakers. Numerous phytoliths of bananas have been recovered from the Kuk Swamp archaeological site and dated to around 10,000 to 6,500 BP. Foraging humans in this area began domestication in the late Pleistocene using transplantation and early cultivation methods. By the early to middle of the Holocene the process was complete. From New Guinea, cultivated bananas spread westward into Island Southeast Asia. They hybridized with other (possibly independently domesticated) subspecies of Musa acuminata as well as M. balbisiana in the Philippines, northern New Guinea, and possibly Halmahera. These hybridization events produced the triploid cultivars of bananas commonly grown today. The banana was one of the key crops that enabled farming to begin in Papua New Guinea.

Spread
From Island Southeast Asia, bananas became part of the staple domesticated crops of Austronesian peoples.

These ancient introductions resulted in the banana subgroup now known as the true plantains, which include the East African Highland bananas and the Pacific plantains (the Iholena and Maoli-Popo'ulu subgroups). East African Highland bananas originated from banana populations introduced to Madagascar probably from the region between Java, Borneo, and New Guinea; while Pacific plantains were introduced to the Pacific Islands from either eastern New Guinea or the Bismarck Archipelago.

21st century discoveries of phytoliths in Cameroon dating to the first millennium BCE triggered a debate about the date of first cultivation in Africa. There is linguistic evidence that bananas were known in East Africa or Madagascar around that time. The earliest prior evidence indicates that cultivation dates to no earlier than the late 6th century AD. Malagasy people colonized Madagascar from South East Asia around 600 AD onwards. Glucanase and two other proteins specific to bananas were found in dental calculus from the early Iron Age (12th century BCE) Philistines in Tel Erani in the southern Levant.

Another wave of introductions later spread bananas to other parts of tropical Asia, particularly Indochina and the Indian subcontinent. Some evidence suggests bananas were known to the Indus Valley civilisation from phytoliths recovered from the Kot Diji archaeological site in Pakistan. Southeast Asia remains the region of primary diversity of the banana. Areas of secondary diversity are found in Africa, indicating a long history of banana cultivation there.

Arab Agricultural Revolution
The banana may have been present in isolated locations elsewhere in the Middle East on the eve of Islam. The spread of Islam was followed by far-reaching diffusion. There are numerous references to it in Islamic texts (such as poems and hadiths) beginning in the 9th century. By the 10th century, the banana appeared in texts from Palestine and Egypt. From there it diffused into North Africa and Muslim Iberia during the Arab Agricultural Revolution. An article on banana tree cultivation is included in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, Kitāb al-Filāḥa (Book on Agriculture). During the Middle Ages, bananas from Granada were considered among the best in the Arab world. Bananas were certainly grown in the Christian Kingdom of Cyprus by the late medieval period. Writing in 1458, the Italian traveller and writer Gabriele Capodilista wrote favourably of the extensive farm produce of the estates at Episkopi, near modern-day Limassol, including the region's banana plantations.

Early modern spread
In the early modern period, bananas were encountered by European explorers during the Magellan expedition in 1521, in both Guam and the Philippines. Lacking a name for the fruit, the ship's historian Antonio Pigafetta described them as "figs more than one palm long." Bananas were introduced to South America by Portuguese sailors who brought them from West Africa in the 16th century. Southeast Asian banana cultivars, as well as abaca grown for fibers, were introduced to North and Central America by the Spanish from the Philippines, via the Manila galleons.

Plantation cultivation

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa. North Americans began consuming bananas on a small scale at very high prices shortly after the Civil War, though it was only in the 1880s that the food became more widespread. As late as the Victorian Era, bananas were not widely known in Europe, although they were available.

The earliest modern plantations originated in Jamaica and the related Western Caribbean Zone, including most of Central America. Plantation cultivation involved the combination of modern transportation networks of steamships and railroads with the development of refrigeration that allowed more time between harvesting and ripening. North American shippers like Lorenzo Dow Baker and Andrew Preston, the founders of the Boston Fruit Company started this process in the 1870s, with the participation of railroad builders like Minor C. Keith. Development led to the multi-national giant corporations like Chiquita and Dole. These companies were monopolistic, vertically integrated (controlling growing, processing, shipping and marketing) and usually used political manipulation to build enclave economies (internally self-sufficient, virtually tax exempt, and export-oriented, contributing little to the host economy). Their political maneuvers, which gave rise to the term banana republic for states such as Honduras and Guatemala, included working with local elites and their rivalries to influence politics or playing the international interests of the United States, especially during the Cold War, to keep the political climate favorable to their interests.

Small-scale cultivation

The vast majority of the world's bananas are cultivated for family consumption or for sale on local markets. They are grown in large quantities in India, while many other Asian and African countries host numerous small-scale banana growers who sell at least some of their crop. Peasants with smallholdings of 1 to 2 acres in the Caribbean produce bananas for the world market, often alongside other crops. In many tropical countries, the main cultivars produce green (unripe) bananas used for cooking. Because bananas and plantains produce fruit year-round, they provide a valuable food source during the hunger season between harvests of other crops, and are thus important for global food security.

Modern cultivation
Bananas are propagated asexually from offshoots. The plant is allowed to produce two shoots at a time; a larger one for immediate fruiting and a smaller "sucker" or "follower" to produce fruit in 6–8 months. As a non-seasonal crop, bananas are available fresh year-round. They are grown in some 135 countries.

Cavendish

In global commerce in 2009, by far the most important cultivars belonged to the triploid Musa acuminata AAA group of Cavendish group bananas. Disease is threatening the production of the Cavendish banana worldwide. It is unclear if any existing cultivar can replace Cavendish bananas, so various hybridisation and genetic engineering programs are attempting to create a disease-resistant, mass-market banana. One such strain that has emerged is the Taiwanese Cavendish or Formosana.

Ripening
Export bananas are picked green, and ripened in special rooms upon arrival in the destination country. These rooms are air-tight and filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening. This mimics the normal production of this gas as a ripening hormone. Ethylene stimulates the formation of amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch into sugar, influencing the taste. Ethylene signals the production of pectinase, a different enzyme which breaks down the pectin between the cells of the banana, causing the banana to soften as it ripens. The vivid yellow color many consumers in temperate climates associate with bananas is caused by ripening around 18 C, and does not occur in Cavendish bananas ripened in tropical temperatures (over 27 C), which leaves them green.

Storage and transport

Bananas are transported over long distances from the tropics to world markets. To obtain maximum shelf life, harvest comes before the fruit is mature. The fruit requires careful handling, rapid transport to ports, cooling, and refrigerated shipping. The goal is to prevent the bananas from producing their natural ripening agent, ethylene. This technology allows storage and transport for 3–4 weeks at 13 C. On arrival, bananas are held at about 17 C and treated with a low concentration of ethylene. After a few days, the fruit begins to ripen and is distributed for final sale. Ripe bananas can be held for a few days at home. If bananas are too green, they can be put in a brown paper bag with an apple or tomato overnight to speed up the ripening process.

Sustainability
The excessive use of fertilizers contributes greatly to eutrophication in streams and lakes, harming aquatic life, while expanding banana production has led to deforestation. As soil nutrients are depleted, more forest is cleared for plantations. This causes soil erosion and increases the frequency of flooding.

Voluntary sustainability standards such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade are being used to address some of these issues. Banana production certified in this way grew rapidly at the start of the 21st century to represent 36% of banana exports by 2016. However, such standards are applied mainly in countries which focus on the export market, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala; worldwide they cover only 8–10% of production.

Breeding
Mutation breeding can be used in this crop. Aneuploidy is a source of significant variation in allotriploid varieties. For one example, it can be a source of TR4 resistance. Lab protocols have been devised to screen for such aberrations and for possible resulting disease resistances. Wild Musa spp. provide useful resistance genetics, and are vital to breeding for TR4 resistance, as shown in introgressed resistance from wild relatives.

The Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Research has bred a seedless banana that is resistant to both Panama disease and black Sigatoka disease. The team made use of the fact that "seedless" varieties do rarely produce seeds; they obtained around fifteen seeds from some 30,000 cultivated plants, pollinated by hand with pollen from wild Asian bananas.

Production and export
, bananas are exported in larger volume and to a larger value than any other fruit. In 2022, world production of bananas and plantains combined was 179 million tonnes, led by India and China with a combined total of 26% of global production. Other major producers were Uganda, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria and Ecuador. As reported for 2013, total world exports were 20 million tonnes of bananas and 859,000 tonnes of plantains. Ecuador and the Philippines were the leading exporters with 5.4 and 3.3 million tonnes, respectively, and the Dominican Republic was the leading exporter of plantains with 210,350 tonnes.

Pests
Bananas are damaged by a variety of pests, especially nematodes and insects.

Nematodes
Banana roots are subject to damage from multiple species of parasitic nematodes. Radopholus similis causes nematode root rot, the most serious nematode disease of bananas in economic terms. Root-knot is the result of infection by species of Meloidogyne, while root-lesion is caused by species of Pratylenchus, and spiral nematode root damage is the result of infection by Helicotylenchus species.

Insects
Among the main insect pests of banana cultivation are two beetles that cause substantial economic losses, the banana borer Cosmopolites sordidus and the banana stem weevil Odoiporus longicollis. Other significant pests include aphids and scarring beetles.

Diseases
Although in no danger of outright extinction, bananas of the Cavendish group, which dominate the global market, are under threat. There is a need to enrich banana biodiversity by producing diverse new banana varieties, not just focusing on the Cavendish. Its predecessor 'Gros Michel', discovered in the 1820s, was similarly dominant but had to be replaced after widespread infections of Panama disease. Monocropping of Cavendish similarly leaves it susceptible to disease and so threatens both commercial cultivation and small-scale subsistence farming. Within the data gathered from the genes of hundreds of bananas, the botanist Julie Sardos has found several wild banana ancestors currently unknown to scientists, whose genes could provide a means of defense against banana crop diseases.

Some commentators have remarked that those variants which could replace what much of the world considers a "typical banana" are so different that most people would not consider them the same fruit, and blame the decline of the banana on monogenetic cultivation driven by short-term commercial motives. Overall, fungal diseases are disproportionately important to small island developing states.

Panama disease

Panama disease is caused by a Fusarium soil fungus, which enters the plants through the roots and travels with water into the trunk and leaves, producing gels and gums that cut off the flow of water and nutrients, causing the plant to wilt, and exposing the rest of the plant to lethal amounts of sunlight. Prior to 1960, almost all commercial banana production centered on the Gros Michel cultivar, which was highly susceptible. Cavendish was chosen as the replacement for Gros Michel because, among resistant cultivars, it produces the highest quality fruit. It requires more care during shipping, and its quality compared to Gros Michel is debated.

Fusarium wilt TR4
Fusarium wilt TR4, a reinvigorated strain of Panama disease, was discovered in 1993. This virulent form of Fusarium wilt has destroyed Cavendish plantations in several southeast Asian countries and spread to Australia and India. As the soil-based fungi can easily be carried on boots, clothing, or tools, the wilt spread to the Americas despite years of preventive efforts. Without genetic diversity, Cavendish is highly susceptible to TR4, and the disease endangers its commercial production worldwide. The only known defense to TR4 is genetic resistance. This is conferred either by RGA2, a gene isolated from a TR4-resistant diploid banana, or by the nematode-derived Ced9. This may be achieved by genetic modification.

Black sigatoka

Black sigatoka is a fungal leaf spot disease first observed in Fiji in 1963 or 1964. It is caused by the ascomycete Mycosphaerella fijiensis. The disease, also called black leaf streak, has spread to banana plantations throughout the tropics from infected banana leaves used as packing material. It affects all main cultivars of bananas and plantains (including the Cavendish cultivars ), impeding photosynthesis by blackening parts of the leaves, eventually killing the entire leaf. Starved for energy, fruit production falls by 50% or more, and the bananas that do grow ripen prematurely, making them unsuitable for export. The fungus has shown ever-increasing resistance to treatment; spraying with fungicides may be required as often as 50 times a year. Better strategies, with integrated pest management, are needed.

Banana bunchy top virus

Banana bunchy top virus is a plant virus of the genus Babuvirus, family Nanonviridae affecting Musa spp. (including banana, abaca, plantain and ornamental bananas) and Ensete spp. in the family Musaceae. Banana bunchy top disease symptoms include dark green streaks of variable length in leaf veins, midribs and petioles. Leaves become short and stunted as the disease progresses, becoming 'bunched' at the apex of the plant. Infected plants may produce no fruit or the fruit bunch may not emerge from the pseudostem. The virus is transmitted by the banana aphid Pentalonia nigronervosa and is widespread in Southeast Asia, Asia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Oceania and parts of Africa. There is no cure, but it can be effectively controlled by the eradication of diseased plants and the use of virus-free planting material. No resistant cultivars have been found, but varietal differences in susceptibility have been reported. The commercially important Cavendish subgroup is severely affected.

Banana bacterial wilt
Banana bacterial wilt is a bacterial disease caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum. First identified on a close relative of bananas, Ensete ventricosum, in Ethiopia in the 1960s, The disease was first seen in Uganda in 2001 affecting all banana cultivars. Since then it has been diagnosed in Central and East Africa, including the banana growing regions of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda.

Conservation of genetic diversity

Given the narrow range of genetic diversity present in bananas and the many threats via biotic (pests and diseases) and abiotic threats (such as drought) stress, conservation of the full spectrum of banana genetic resources is ongoing. In 2024, the economist Pascal Liu of the FAO described the impact of global warming as an "enormous threat" to the world supply of bananas.

Banana germplasm is conserved in many national and regional gene banks, and at the world's largest banana collection, the International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre, managed by Bioversity International and hosted at KU Leuven in Belgium. Since Musa cultivars are mostly seedless, they are conserved by three main methods: in vivo (planted in field collections), in vitro (as plantlets in test tubes within a controlled environment), and by cryopreservation (meristems conserved in liquid nitrogen at −196 °C).

Genes from wild banana species are conserved as DNA and as cryopreserved pollen. Seeds from wild species are sometimes conserved, although less commonly, as they are difficult to regenerate. In addition, bananas and their crop wild relatives are conserved in situ, in the wild natural habitats where they evolved and continue to do so. Diversity is also conserved in farmers' fields where continuous cultivation, adaptation and improvement of cultivars is often carried out by small-scale farmers growing traditional local cultivars.

Nutrition
A raw banana (not including the peel) is 75% water, 23% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat. A reference amount of 100 g supplies 89 calories, 31% of the Daily Value of vitamin B6, and moderate amounts of vitamin C, manganese, potassium, and dietary fiber, with no other micronutrients in significant content (table).

Although bananas are commonly thought to contain exceptional potassium content, their actual potassium content is not high per typical food serving, having only 12% of the Daily Value for potassium (table). The potassium-content ranking for bananas among fruits, vegetables, legumes, and many other foods is medium.

Individuals with a latex allergy may experience a reaction to bananas.

Fruit
Bananas are a staple starch for many tropical populations. Depending upon cultivar and ripeness, the flesh can vary in taste from starchy to sweet, and texture from firm to mushy. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten raw or cooked. The primary component of the aroma of fresh bananas is isoamyl acetate (also known as banana oil), which, along with several other compounds such as butyl acetate and isobutyl acetate, is a significant contributor to banana flavor.

Plantains are eaten cooked, such as made into fritters. Pisang goreng, bananas fried with batter is a popular street food in Southeast Asia. Bananas feature in Philippine cuisine, with desserts like maruya banana fritters. Bananas can be made into fruit preserves. Banana chips are a snack produced from sliced and fried bananas, such as in Kerala. Dried bananas are ground to make banana flour. In Africa, matoke bananas are cooked in a sauce with meat and vegetables such as peanuts or beans to make the breakfast dish katogo. In Western countries, bananas are used to make desserts such as banana bread.

Flowers
Banana flowers (also called "banana hearts" or "banana blossoms") are used as a vegetable in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. The flavor resembles that of artichoke. As with artichokes, both the fleshy part of the bracts and the heart are edible.

Leaf
Banana leaves are large, flexible, and waterproof. While generally too tough to actually be eaten, they are often used as ecologically friendly disposable food containers or as "plates" in South Asia and several Southeast Asian countries. In Indonesian cuisine, banana leaf is employed in cooking methods like pepes and botok; banana leaf packages containing food ingredients and spices are cooked in steam or in boiled water, or are grilled on charcoal. Certain types of tamales are wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks.

When used so for steaming or grilling, the banana leaves protect the food ingredients from burning and add a subtle sweet flavor. In South India, it is customary to serve traditional food on a banana leaf. In Tamil Nadu (India), dried banana leaves are used as to pack food and to make cups to hold liquid food items.

Trunk
The tender core of the banana plant's trunk is also used in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. Examples include the Burmese dish mohinga, and the Filipino dishes inubaran and kadyos, manok, kag ubad.

Paper and textiles
Banana fiber harvested from the pseudostems and leaves has been used for textiles in Asia since at least the 13th century. Both fruit-bearing and fibrous banana species have been used. In the Japanese system Kijōka-bashōfu, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled in lye to prepare fibers for yarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibers of the shoots are the coarsest, and are suitable for tablecloths, while the softest innermost fibers are desirable for kimono and kamishimo. This traditional Japanese cloth-making process requires many steps, all performed by hand. Banana paper can be made either from the bark of the banana plant, mainly for artistic purposes, or from the fibers of the stem and non-usable fruits. The paper may be hand-made or industrially processed.

Other uses
The large leaves of bananas are locally used as umbrellas.

Banana peel may have capability to extract heavy metal contamination from river water, similar to other purification materials. Waste bananas can be used to feed livestock.

As with all living things, potassium-containing bananas emit radioactivity at low levels occurring naturally from the potassium-40 (K-40) isotope. The banana equivalent dose of radiation was developed in 1995 as a simple teaching-tool to educate the public about the natural, small amount of K-40 radiation occurring in everyone and in common foods.

Arts
The Edo period poet Matsuo Bashō is named after the Japanese word 芭蕉 (Bashō) for the Japanese banana. The Bashō planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home.

The song "Yes! We Have No Bananas" was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn and originally released in 1923; for many decades, it was the best-selling sheet music in history. Since then the song has been rerecorded several times and has been particularly popular during banana shortages.

A person slipping on a banana peel has been a staple of physical comedy for generations. An American comedy recording from 1910 features a popular character of the time, "Uncle Josh", claiming to describe his own such incident.

The banana's suggestively phallic shape has been exploited in artworks from Giorgio de Chirico's 1913 painting The Uncertainty of the Poet onwards. In 2019, an exhibition of Natalia LL's video and set of photographs showing a woman "sucking on a banana" at the Warsaw National Museum was taken down and the museum's director reprimanded. The cover artwork for the 1967 debut album of The Velvet Underground features a banana made by Andy Warhol. On the original vinyl LP version, the design allowed the listener to "peel" this banana to find a pink, peeled banana on the inside. In 1989, the feminist Guerilla Girls made a screenprint with two bananas, intentionally reminiscent of Warhol's, arranged to form a "0" to answer the question in the artwork, "How many works by women artists were in the Andy Warhol and Tremaine auctions at Sotheby's?".

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan created a concept art piece titled Comedian involving taping a banana to a wall using silver duct tape. The piece was exhibited briefly at the Art Basel in Miami before being removed from the exhibition and eaten without permission in another artistic stunt titled Hungry Artist by New York artist David Datuna.

Religion and folklore
In India, bananas serve a prominent part in many festivals and occasions of Hindus. In South Indian weddings, particularly Tamil weddings, banana trees are tied in pairs to form an arch as a blessing to the couple for a long-lasting, useful life.

In Thailand, it is believed that a certain type of banana plant may be inhabited by a spirit, Nang Tani, a type of ghost related to trees and similar plants that manifests itself as a young woman. People often tie a length of colored satin cloth around the pseudostem of the banana plants.

In Malay folklore, the ghost known as Pontianak is associated with banana plants (pokok pisang), and its spirit is said to reside in them during the day.

Racial signifier
In European, British, and Australian sport, throwing a banana at a member of an opposing team has long been used as a form of racial abuse. The act, which was commonplace in England in the 1980s, is meant to taunt players of Black African ancestry by equating them to apes or monkeys.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Banana


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Wedding reception

A wedding reception is a party usually held after the completion of a marriage ceremony as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception: the couple receive society, in the form of family and friends, for the first time as a married couple. Hosts provide their choice of food and drink, although a wedding cake is popular.

Entertaining guests after a wedding ceremony is traditional in most societies, and can last anywhere from half an hour to many hours or even days. Most wedding receptions are made in the evening for dinner; however, the couple may opt for a luncheon, brunch, or even afternoon tea. Ultimately the married couple chooses the details and location of the reception.

In some cultures, separate wedding celebrations are held for the bride's and groom's families.

Before receptions – a social event that is structured around a receiving line, and usually held in the afternoon, with only light refreshments – became popular, weddings were more typically celebrated with wedding breakfasts (for those whose religious traditions encouraged morning weddings) and wedding balls (for those who were married in the evening). The popularity of receptions, rather than breakfasts, dinners, and balls, during the 20th century led to the name reception being applied to any social event after a wedding, whether it is brunch, tea, dinner, or a dance.

Location

Until after World War II, wedding celebrations were most commonly held in the bride's home, in whatever style of entertainment was within the means of the family. This might be a grand ball for a wealthy family, a luncheon for middle-class families, or an afternoon tea, featuring cake and lemonade, for working-class families.

The choice depended primarily on the family's economic situation, and in some cases, mass weddings were favored as a way to share costs. At the beginning of the 20th century, dance halls became common, and were rented by those planning a celebration beyond what their homes could hold.

Typical locations for wedding celebrations now include hotel ballrooms, banquet halls, wedding venues, community halls, social halls at the church or other sacred place where the wedding ceremony took place, and, particularly for smaller weddings, restaurants and garden parties at home. There are also many small businesses that specialize in providing places for wedding ceremonies and celebrations.

Receiving line
In a receiving line, newly wedded couple, the hosts, and often their parents and any honour attendants, stand in order of precedence and greet every guest in turn.

Each guest greets the first (lowest precedence) person in the line and, if necessary, introduces him/herself. The first person then introduces the guest to the next person in the line, and turns to the next guest. As each guest properly speaks little more than his/her name (if necessary) and conventional greetings or congratulations to each person in turn, the line progresses steadily without unnecessary delays.

Western etiquette requires at least one of the hosts and the newly married couple, as the guests of honor, to welcome and greet the guests, but the other members of the wedding party, parents who are not hosting the party, siblings, etc., are not required to stand in the receiving line. It is increasingly common to feature only the couple, since more modern couples host and pay for their own weddings rather than their parents.

After formally receiving each guest in this fashion, the receiving line is finished and the people who had been duty-bound to stand in it can mingle with guests, eat, and enjoy more extended conversations.

Grand entrance
Another option, especially popular on the East and West Coast of the United States, is having a grand entrance instead of a receiving line. The grand entrance might involve presenting some or all of the wedding party, the parents, and/or the bride and groom.

The wedding party is usually introduced by a master of ceremonies, toastmaster, disc jockey, or band leader. It may be done in the same manner as they walked down the aisle during the wedding ceremony. This is generally much faster than a receiving line and guests may be seated before the arrival of the wedding party. In addition, it can be an event in itself and be as entertaining as wished. Introductions may be accompanied by music and information about each person to introduce them to the guests. However, unlike a reception line, it does not give the guests an opportunity to speak to any of the people being presented.

Food

The food served at a wedding reception is determined by the time of the wedding and local customs. Food may range from a non-alcoholic drink with wedding cake to elaborate, multi-course dinners. The type of food is chosen entirely at the discretion and budget of the hosts as costs for catering weddings have soared.

Some receptions, especially if the wedding party's culture or religious faith prohibits alcohol or dancing, focus on dessert. Hosts may also choose to honor regional or local customs, such as by serving a culturally important cake like croquembouche in France, or featuring a cookie table as is celebrated in Pittsburgh and some surrounding areas.

The wedding cake is often a multi-tiered layer cake that is elaborately decorated with white frosting. Some couples have a smaller display cake, which is supplemented by sheet cake.

The groom's cake is a tradition observed mainly in the southern United States. In the Colonial and Victorian eras, the white-iced bride's cake was considered "too light" for male tastes, and a second cake choice—usually a dark, liquor-soaked fruitcake—was also offered. Today, chocolate is popular, although the groom's cake may be in any flavor and is usually shaped or decorated as something significant to the groom, such as a favorite hobby or sport.

If a full meal is served, the wedding cake is usually served after the meal. Otherwise, the cake may be served as soon as the family has received all of the guests.

Commonly, the couple ceremonially cut the first piece of the cake, and in a nod to an ancient Roman wedding rite, may feed a bite to one another and perhaps sip a glass of wine or other drink with linked arms. Then the cake is served to the guests. Like being asked to pour tea at a formal tea party, being asked to serve the cake is generally considered an honor.

Toasts
In most Western countries, either before or after food is served, toasts are made by members of the wedding party, wishing the couple well. Commonly, toasts are proposed by the bride's father, the groom, the best man, and/or the maid of honor, although there is no absolutely required list of people who must make toasts, or indeed any requirement to offer toasts at all.

A new trend involves the addition of a DVD slideshow or photo montage video, featuring pictures of the new spouses growing up and meeting. These are created using home movies and photos taken over the couple's life, edited and set to music. The montage is shown either on a large TV or monitor or with an LCD projector.

Dances
If there is dancing, the newly married couple typically open the dancing with their first dance. When waltzing was popular, it was sometimes called a "bridal waltz" to a love song, although other dance styles are more commonly used now. The bride and groom might decide to choose a choreographed dance routine or other forms of dancing, like club, disco or hip hop.

Top 40 chart hits becoming an increasingly popular option for the first dance – the most popular first dance song at UK weddings in 2020 is You Got Me Thinking, a soft rock ballad by Joshua Radin. Before the wedding, the newlyweds choose a DJ and agree on a playlist with them. As a rule, the performance of the DJ takes place after the official traditional part.

Traditionally, shortly after the dance begins, guests would promptly join in the dancing, in order of precedence, exactly like at any other ball. In very recent times, some families have told guests to not start dancing until after watching a sometimes lengthy sequence of "special" dances. For example, after the first dance, the newly married couple might dance with their parents and/or in-laws. However, there is no requirement that any particular people dance at all, much less with any particular person, and no absolutely required order for the bridal couple, their families, or the bridal party to begin dancing in.

Entertainment
Wedding receptions are often the time when couples want to ensure their family and guests will be entertained, and a variety of options such as disc jockeys, live bands, professional dancers such as ballroom dancers or belly dancers, magicians, fire artists, electric violinists, comedians and more unusual entertainers are brought in to heighten the festivities and make the wedding stand out.

Typically, including lavish entertainment at the wedding reception is a luxury. Wedding DJ's have been increasing in popularity in modern cultures as has hiring a live band. As of 2020, wedding entertainment is extremely varied.

Departure
A ceremony is often made of the newlyweds' departure. Rice or birdseed, signifying abundance, may be thrown at the departing couple, with birdseed preferred by facility managers, since it requires less clean up work than rice, and new, mess-free substitutes, such as blowing soap bubbles or ringing small bells being even more favored by the cleaning staff.

As the newlyweds are the guests of honor, the other guests are expected to remain at the reception until they leave them, and consequently, it is an imposition on the other guests for the newlyweds to stay unreasonably long at the party. On occasion, the newlyweds will stage an official leave-taking, so that guests feel free to leave, and then quietly return through another door.

Expense
The median cost of a wedding, including both the ceremony and reception, has generally outpaced the rate of inflation. In the United States, as of 2016, the average price is $35,329, steadily rising year over year, as it also has in the UK where the average cost was £25,090, rising roughly 7000 pounds from two years prior. In Australia, the cost is $36,200 (AUD). Approximately 50% of a couple's entire wedding budget is spent on the reception alone. This is primarily due to the cost of food and alcohol. The wedding industry is a huge industry grossing $161 billion annually, according to Rebecca Mead, author of One Perfect Day.

Other Western traditions and beyond
Wedding traditions vary between countries, and between regions of the same country. Some shared traditions include:

 * The money dance, or "dollar dance". Guests pay a small amount of money to dance with the bride or groom. In some cultures, the money is pinned to a special apron worn by the bride or groom. In others, the money is collected by friends. This is prevalent among Polish and Italian couples, although many other brides and grooms often incorporate it. There is considerable debate about the propriety of a money dance in English-speaking countries, where the practice is frowned upon because making guests pay for dancing or socializing with the bridal couple seems inhospitable, greedy, or distasteful. It is accepted when the couple and the majority of their guests are of one of the cultures in which it is traditional.
 * Tossing of the bride's bouquet and garter. The bride tosses her bouquet over her shoulder to a group of all the single women present. Whoever catches it is supposed to be the next to get married. Similarly, the groom tosses the bride's garter to the single men after removing it from her leg. On occasion, the bride will "rig" the bouquet toss by tossing the bouquet to a woman who is engaged. The groom then arranges for the fiancé of the bouquet-toss winner to receive the bride's garter. Sometimes, the man who catches the garter is supposed to put it on the leg of the woman who catches the bouquet, or the garter is sold in a raffle instead of being tossed. This tradition is now slightly less common in Western cultures, where some have argued it is old fashioned.
 * Clinking glasses. Guests will often clink their glasses during dinner to ask the newlyweds to stand up and kiss. Some couples pass out wedding favor bells for guests to ring instead of clinking glasses.
 * Favors. The hosts may provide a small gift for each guest. Favors may include chocolates, candles, picture frames, or other small gifts. Such favors are not required.

Gifts
Unless the wedding couple has a wedding registry, it is best not to give gifts or gift certificates. For Chinese weddings, a check is always the best gift. This tradition is the same in traditional Italian weddings. In addition to the check, in Chinese weddings some elder relatives might also give gold jewelry. The check should be in a red envelope or red pocket with the givers' names on it, and it is always given when signing in at the restaurant. In choosing the amount of money to give, givers scrupulously avoid unlucky numbers, such as 4 and favor combinations of lucky numbers, such as 8 and 9. Also, white envelopes are never used to wrap gifts for a wedding or other joyful event, as the color white is associated with death.

Timing
There are two times listed on the invitation: 恭候 (gōnghòu/greeting) and 入席 (rùxí/reception). Typically, they are at least two hours apart (some may be four hours). The first one is the time the groom and bride, along with their family, will be ready to receive guests and greet them; the second one is the time the reception/banquet will start. The gap between those hours is referred to as entertainment time. Very often, the restaurant will provide poker and mahjong (麻將) for gambling; the time can also be used to socialize with other guests and take photos with the bride/groom and their families. Nowadays, for Chinese couples' weddings in the U.S., you are less likely to see mahjong being played before the banquet; it is often replaced by a cocktail party. However, if the wedding reception takes place in southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, and even parts of Canada (where there is a large Cantonese population), mahjong might still be played before the dinner.

Signing in
Two people will be at the sign-in tables (one from the bride's family and one from the groom's) to register guests and receive gifts/red envelopes. Often, they will have two separate guest lists, one from the groom's side and one from the bride's. Then the best man and the maid of honor will direct ushers to escort guests to their seat.

Banquet procedure
Typically, the banquet will include a speech from the parents, the best man, the maid of honor, and the guest speaker. There will be cake cutting, toasts, a tea ceremony, and dancing. The two tables at the center of the room are for the groom's and bride's families.

Traditions
A Chinese wedding reception typically has nine or ten courses. Expensive dishes such as shark fin, abalone, lobster, jumbo shrimp, squab, sea bass, or sea cucumber are common on a wedding banquet menu. A whole fish, chicken, or pig means luck and completeness in Chinese wedding culture.

Traditionally, after the fifth dish of the dinner, the groom and bride and their families will approach each table to toast the guests. Very often, the bride will change into a traditional Chinese red wedding dress (鳳褂, or qípáo) at that time, if she has been wearing a different style of clothing before.

Gallery
The decorations vary by culture and budget.

title: Wedding reception


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Talk:Wedding reception

Complaint
This article is an example of cultural and regional bias, as well of oriental mysticism. Wedding receptions exist all around the world, but the article is divided between "western" and "Chinese". This elevates the cultures of one country to the same level as the rest of the world.

In addition, the Chinese article is clearly false, as it states such claims such as white being considered a symbol of death, while the accompanying photo (although not from china) wears a white "western" wedding dress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.163.76 (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

customs to add
Customs to add, with optional notes on how widespread these are: I just don't have the energy to write these up at the moment. Wesley
 * cutting the cake, bride and groom feeding each other
 * bride tosses bouquet to eligible bridesmaids, catcher is superstitiously though next to be married
 * in Switzerland (and other European countries?), bride and groom throw candy to the kids
 * dancing. first dance, etc.
 * as bride and groom leave, people toss rice (now usually birdseed) at the bride and groom
 * In Cambodia (and other Asian countries?), the wedding feast lasts around 3 days I think.

One difference in the receptions is the formality of them. There can be open houses, calling receptions and full receptions. Somebody can explain difference. 68.148.224.136 03:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)Zak

Regarding FAVORS... Is SOUP really a popular favor? Or perhaps SOAP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.18.152 (talk) 00:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I was wondering the exact same thing. Soup? 71.214.156.77 (talk) 05:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the sentences "...Before the next dish is served, waiters will take away the previous dish. If there is any food remaining in the dish, guests may ask the waiters to package it..." from the chinese wedding food section. Customs vary significantly among chinese living in different countries, and the above is be perceived as rude in western countries. super_copy, 20080826 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Super copy (talk • contribs) 18:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Toasts
Regarding these (I believe related) edits. The Toast (honor) article includes statements like "There is no requirement that beverages contain alcohol". So I'm not sure where this desire to emphasize non-alcoholic drinking comes from. In any case Wikipedia is not a soapbox. While we shouldn't exclude a significant custom or concept, we shouldn't be emphasizing one out of context. If there is something new and significant to say about toasts at weddings where there is no alcohol then we should include it, but the original edit did not do so. I like linking to the main article on toasts though - good web building. -- SiobhanHansa 11:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted popular culture references
I moved some popular culture references to here. When they are numerous enough, they may justify a separate Wedding reception in popular culture-section: Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Humorous choreographed dances are seen on the Rock the Reception TV show.
 * Steel Magnolias, the popular wedding movie, features a groom's cake, specifically, a red velvet cake in the shape of a giant armadillo.

Reception
This is something of an aide de memoire: I know that once upon a time, I read that afternoon wedding receptions became popular in America (compared to breakfasts, dinners, and balls) during the Great Depression, because they're cheap (typically, at that time, lemonade and tea with a cake vs a full meal). However, I have no idea which book it was in, so I don't really want to add that right now. I believe that at the time of the transition to receptions, they were still routinely being held in people's homes; the change of venue was post-WWII. If someone else has run across that information and knows where to find it, I'd love to hear from you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

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Cooking banana

Cooking bananas are a group of starchy banana cultivars in the genus Musa whose fruits are generally used in cooking. They are not eaten raw and generally starchy. Many cooking bananas are referred to as plantains (/ˈplæntɪn/, /plænˈteɪn/, /ˈplɑːntɪn/ ) or 'green bananas'. In botanical usage, the term "plantain" is used only for true plantains, while other starchy cultivars used for cooking are called "cooking bananas". True plantains are cooking cultivars belonging to the AAB group, while cooking bananas are any cooking cultivar belonging to the AAB, AAA, ABB, or BBB groups. The currently accepted scientific name for all such cultivars in these groups is Musa × paradisiaca. Fe'i bananas (Musa × troglodytarum) from the Pacific Islands are often eaten roasted or boiled, and are thus informally referred to as "mountain plantains", but they do not belong to any of the species from which all modern banana cultivars are descended.

Cooking bananas are a major food staple in West and Central Africa, the Caribbean islands, Central America, and northern South America. Members of the genus Musa are indigenous to the tropical regions of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Bananas fruit all year round, making them a reliable all-season staple food.

Cooking bananas are treated as a starchy fruit with a relatively neutral flavor and soft texture when cooked. Cooking bananas may be eaten raw; however, they are most commonly prepared either fried, boiled, or processed into flour or dough.

Description
Plantains contain more starch and less sugar than dessert bananas, so they are usually cooked or otherwise processed before being eaten. They are typically boiled or fried when eaten green, and when processed, they can be made into flour and turned into baked products such as cakes, bread and pancakes. Green plantains can also be boiled and pureed and then used as thickeners for soups. The pulp of green plantain is typically hard, with the peel often so stiff that it must be cut with a knife to be removed.

Mature, yellow plantains can be peeled like typical dessert bananas; the pulp is softer than in immature, green fruit and some of the starch has been converted to sugar. They can be eaten raw, but are not as flavourful as dessert bananas, so are usually cooked. When yellow plantains are fried, they tend to caramelize, turning a golden-brown color. They can also be boiled, baked, microwaved, or grilled over charcoal, either peeled or unpeeled.

Plantains are a staple food in the tropical regions of the world, ranking as the tenth most important staple food in the world. As a staple, plantains are treated in much the same way as potatoes, with a similar neutral flavour and texture when the unripe fruit is cooked by steaming, boiling, or frying.

Since they fruit all year, plantains are a reliable staple food, particularly in developing countries with inadequate food storage, preservation, and transportation technologies. In Africa, plantains and bananas provide more than 25 percent of the caloric requirements for over 70 million people. Plantain plantations are vulnerable to destruction by hurricanes, because Musa spp. do not withstand high winds well.

An average plantain provides about 220 kcal of food energy and is a good source of potassium and dietary fiber. The sap from the fruit peel, as well as the entire plant, can stain clothing and hands, and can be difficult to remove.

Taxonomy
Linnaeus originally classified bananas into two species based only on their uses as food: Musa paradisiaca for plantains and Musa sapientum for dessert bananas. Both are now known to be hybrids between the species Musa acuminata (A genome) and Musa balbisiana (B genome). The earlier published name, Musa × paradisiaca, is now used as the scientific name for all such hybrids. Most modern plantains are sterile triploids belonging to the AAB Group, sometimes known as the "Plantain group". Other economically important cooking banana groups include the East African Highland bananas (Mutika/Lujugira subgroup) of the AAA Group and the Pacific plantains (including the Popoulo, Maoli, and Iholena subgroups), also of the AAB Group.

Fried
Pisang goreng ("fried banana" in Indonesian and Malay) is a plantain snack deep-fried in coconut oil. Pisang goreng can be coated in batter flour or fried without batter. It is a snack food mostly found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Ethakka appam, pazham (banana) boli or pazham pori are terms used for fried plantain in the state of Kerala, India. The plantain is usually dipped in sweetened rice and white flour batter and then fried in coconut or vegetable oil, similar to pisang goreng. It is also known as bajji in Southern Indian states, where it is typically served as a savory fast food.

In the Philippines, fried bananas are also served with arroz a la cubana and is frequently characterized as one of its defining ingredients.

Plantains are used in the Ivory Coast dish aloco as the main ingredient. Fried plantains are covered in an onion-tomato sauce, often with a grilled fish between the plantains and sauce.

Boli or bole is the term used for roasted plantain in Nigeria. The plantain is usually grilled and served with roasted fish, ground peanuts and a hot palm oil sauce. It is a dish native to the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria. It is popular among the working class as an inexpensive midday meal. Plantain is popular in West and Central Africa, especially Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bénin, Ghana and Nigeria; when ripe plantain is fried, it is generally called dodo ("dough-dough"). The ripe plantain is usually sliced diagonally for a large oval shape, then fried in oil to a golden brown color. The diagonal slice maximizes the surface area, allowing the plantain to cook evenly. Fried plantain can be eaten as such, or served with stew or sauce. In Ikire, a town in Osun State in southwestern Nigeria, there is a special way of preparing fried plantain known as Dodo Ikire. This variation of Dodo (Fried Plantain) is made from overripe plantain, chopped into small pieces, sprinkled with chili pepper and then fried in boiling point palm oil until the pieces turn blackish. The fried plantains are then stuffed carefully into a plastic funnel and then pressed using a wooden pestle to compress and acquire a conical shape when removed.

In Ghana, the dish is called kelewele and can be found as a snack sold by street vendors. Though sweeter and spicier variations exist, kelewele is often flavored with nutmeg, chili powder, ginger and salt. In the Western hemisphere, tostones (also known as banann peze in Haiti, tachinos or chatinos in Cuba, and patacones in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Venezuela) are twice-fried plantain fritters, often served as a side dish, appetizer or snack. Plantains are sliced in 4 cm long pieces and fried in oil. The segments are then removed and individually smashed down to about half their original height. Finally, the pieces are fried again and then seasoned, often with salt. In some countries, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the tostones are dipped in Creole sauce from chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp before eating. In Haiti, bannann peze is commonly served with pikliz, a slaw-like condiment made with cabbage, onions, carrots and scotch bonnet peppers. In Nicaragua, tostones are typically served with fried cheese (Tostones con queso) and sometimes with refried beans. While the name tostones is used to describe this food when prepared at home, in some South American countries the word also describes plantain chips, which are typically purchased from a store.

In western Venezuela, much of Colombia and the Peruvian Amazon, patacones are a frequently seen variation of tostones. Plantains are sliced in long pieces and fried in oil, then used to make sandwiches with pork, beef, chicken, vegetables and ketchup. They can be made with unripe patacon verde or ripe patacon amarillo plantains. Although there are local names for tostones in almost every Latin country, they are still commonly called tostones in all of Latin America.

Chifles is the Spanish term used in Peru and Ecuador for fried green plantains sliced 1 – thick; it is also used to describe plantain chips which are sliced thinner. In Nicaragua, they are called "tajadas" and are sliced thinly the long way. They are commonly served alongside many dishes, including fritanga, and sold in bags by themselves.

In Honduras, Venezuela and Central Colombia, fried ripened plantain slices are known as tajadas. They are customary in most typical meals, such as the Venezuelan pabellón criollo. The host or waiter may also offer them as barandas (guard rails), in common slang, as the long slices are typically placed on the sides of a full dish, and therefore look as such. Some variations include adding honey or sugar and frying the slices in butter, to obtain a golden caramel; the result has a sweeter taste and a characteristic pleasant smell. The same slices are known as amarillos and fritos maduros in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic respectively. In Panama, tajadas are eaten daily together with steamed rice, meat and beans, thus making up an essential part of the Panamanian diet, as with Honduras. By contrast, in Nicaragua, tajadas are fried unripened plantain slices, and are traditionally served at a fritanga, with fried pork or carne asada, or on their own on green banana leaves, either with a cabbage salad or fresh or fried cheese.

On Colombia's Caribbean coast, tajadas of fried green plantain are consumed along with grilled meats, and are the dietary equivalent of the French-fried potatoes/chips of Europe and North America.

After removing the skin, maduro can be sliced (between 3 and(-) thick) and pan-fried in oil until golden brown or according to preference. In the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras (where they are usually eaten with the native sour cream) and Venezuela, they are also eaten baked in the oven (sometimes with cinnamon). In Puerto Rico baked plátanos maduros are usually eaten for breakfast and served with eggs (mainly an omelet with cheese), chorizo or bacon. Only salt is added to green plantains.

Tacacho is a roasted plantain Amazonian cuisine dish from Peru. It is usually served con cecina, with bits of pork.

In Venezuela, a yo-yo is a traditional dish made of two short slices of fried ripened plantain (see Tajadas) placed on top of each other, with local soft white cheese in the middle (in a sandwich-like fashion) and held together with toothpicks. The arrangement is dipped in beaten eggs and fried again until the cheese melts and the yo-yo acquires a deep golden hue. They are served as sides or entrees.

In Puerto Rico fried plantains are served in a variety of ways as side dishes, fast foods, and main course. An alternative to tostones are arañitas (little spiders). The name comes from the grated green and yellow plantain pieces forming little legs that stick out of the fritter itself, which ends up looking like a prickly spider on a plate. Alcapurrias are a traditional snack with masa dough made from grated green banana, yautía, seasoned with lard, annatto and stuffed with picadillo. Alcaparrado de plátano have additional grated plantain added to the masa. Mofongo is a beloved dish on the island celebrating a blend of cultures making it one of Puerto Ricos most important dishes. Plantains are fried once and mashed with garlic, fat (butter, lard or olive oil), chicharrón or bacon, and broth it is then formed into a ball and eaten with other meats, soup, vegetables or alone. Puerto Rican piononos are sweet and savory treats made with a combination of fried yellow plantains, cheese, picadillo, and beaten eggs. The result is sweet plantain cups stuffed with a cheese, ground beef and fluffy egg filling. Ralleno de plátano are the sweet plantain verson of papa rellena very popular street food and  in cuchifritos.

Boiled
Eto is a Ghanaian traditional dish made from boiled and mashed yam or plantain and typically savored with boiled eggs, groundnut (peanuts) and sliced avocado. For the plantain option called 'Boodie eto', the plantain can be used unripe, slightly ripe or fully ripe. Culturally, eto was fed to a bride on the day of her marriage, but is now a popular dish enjoyed outside of special occasions as well.

A traditional mangú from the Dominican Republic consists of peeled and boiled green plantains, mashed with hot water to reach a consistency slightly stiffer than mashed potatoes. It is traditionally eaten at breakfast, topped with sautéed red onions in apple cider vinegar and accompanied by fried eggs, fried cheese or fried bologna sausage, known as Dominican salami.

Plantain porridge is also a common dish throughout the Caribbean, in which cooking bananas are boiled with milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg to form a thick porridge typically served at breakfast.

In Uganda, cooking bananas are referred to as matooke or matoke, which is also the name of a cooking banana stew that is widely prepared in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and eastern Congo. The cooking bananas (specifically East African Highland bananas) are peeled, wrapped in the plant's leaves and set in a cooking pot (a sufuria) on the stalks that have been removed from the leaves. The pot is then placed on a charcoal fire and the matoke is steamed for a few hours. While uncooked, the matoke is white and fairly hard, but cooking turns it soft and yellow. The matoke is then mashed while still wrapped in the leaves and is served with a sauce made of vegetables, ground peanuts, or some type of meat such as goat or beef.

Cayeye, also called Mote de Guineo, is a traditional Colombian dish from the Caribbean Coast of the country. Cayeye is made by cooking small green bananas or plantains in water, then mashing and mixing them with refrito, made with onions, garlic, red bell pepper, tomato and achiote. Cayeye are usually served for breakfast with fresh grated Colombian cheese (Queso Costeño) and fried fish, shrimp, crab, or beef. Most popular is Cayeye with fresh cheese, avocado and fried egg on top.

Funche criollo, is a dish severd for breakfast or dinner and vary on ingredients. Breakfast funche is made with coconut milk, butter, milk, sugar, cornmeal, sweet plantains, and topped with cinnamon, honey, nuts and fruit. The typically dinner version includes plantains green or yellow boiled in broth, butter, sofrito and mashed with taro, cornmeal, or yams. This is a typical dish from Puerto Rico and can be traced back to the Tainos and African slave trade.

As a dough
In Puerto Rico, mofongo is made by mashing fried plantains in a mortar with chicharrón or bacon, garlic, olive oil and stock. Any meat, fish, shellfish, vegetables, spices, or herbs can also be added. The resulting mixture is formed into cylinders the size of about two fists and eaten warm, usually with chicken broth. Mofongo relleno is topped with creole sauce rather than served with chicken broth. Creole sauce may contain stewed beef, chicken or seafood; it is poured into a center crater, formed with the serving spoon, in the mofongo. Grated green bananas and yautias are also used to form masa, a common ingredient for dishes such as alcapurria, which is a type of savory fritter.

Fufu de platano is a traditional and very popular lunch dish in Cuba, and essentially akin to the Puerto Rican mofongo. It is a fufu made by boiling the plantains in water and mashing with a fork. The fufu is then mixed with chicken stock and sofrito, a sauce made from lard, garlic, onions, pepper, tomato sauce, a touch of vinegar and cumin. The texture of Cuban fufu is similar to the mofongo consumed in Puerto Rico, but it is not formed into a ball or fried. Fufu is also a common centuries-old traditional dish made in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and other West & Central African countries. It is made in a similar fashion as the Cuban fufu, but is pounded, and has a thick paste, putty-like texture which is then formed into a ball. West African fufu is sometimes separately made with cassava, yams or made with plantains combined with cassava.

Other dishes
While cooking bananas are starchier and often used in savory dishes as a result, many Philippine desserts also use cooking bananas as a primary ingredient, such as:

 * Banana cue - fried ripe saba bananas coated with caramelized sugar.
 * Binignit - a dessert soup of glutinous rice in coconut milk with ripe saba bananas as one of the main ingredients.
 * Ginanggang - grilled saba bananas coated with margarine and sugar.
 * Maruya - banana fritters made from saba bananas and batter.
 * Minatamis na saging - saba bananas simmered in a sweet syrup. It is rarely eaten alone, but is instead used as an ingredient in other desserts, notably halo halo.
 * Pritong saging - fried ripe saba bananas.
 * Pinasugbo - thinly sliced bananas coated with caramelized sugar and sesame seeds and fried until crunchy.
 * Saba con hielo - a shaved ice dessert which primarily uses minatamis na saging and milk.
 * Turon - a type of dessert lumpia (spring rolls) made from ripe saba bananas wrapped in thin crepe and fried.

In Ecuador, plantain is boiled, crushed, scrambled, and fried into majado. This dish is typically served with a cup of coffee and bistek, fish, or grated cheese. It is a popular breakfast dish. Majado is also used as a base to prepare tigrillo and bolones. To prepare tigrillo, majado is scrambled with pork rind, egg, cheese, green onions, parsley, and cilantro. To prepare bolones, majado is scrambled with cheese, pork rind, or a mixture of both. The resulting mixture is then shaped into a sphere which is later deep-fried. Both tigrillo and bolones are typically served with a cup of coffee.

Chips
After removing the skin, the unripe fruit can be sliced thin and deep fried in hot oil to produce chips. This thin preparation of plantain is known as tostones, patacones or plataninas in some of Central American and South American countries, platanutres in Puerto Rico, mariquitas or chicharritas in Cuba and chifles in Ecuador and Peru. In Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, tostones instead refers to thicker twice-fried patties (see below). In Cuba, plantain chips are called mariquitas. They are sliced thinly, and fried in oil until golden colored. They are popular appetizers served with a main dish. In Colombia they are known as platanitos and are eaten with suero atollabuey as a snack. Tostada refers to a green, unripe plantain which has been cut into sections, fried, flattened, fried again, and salted. These tostadas are often served as a side dish or a snack. They are also known as tostones or patacones in many Latin American countries. In Honduras, banana chips are called tajadas, which may be sliced vertically to create a variation known as plantain strips.

Chips fried in coconut oil and sprinkled with salt, called upperi or kaya varuthathu, are a snack in South India in Kerala. They are an important item in sadya, a vegetarian feast prepared during festive occasions in Kerala. The chips are typically labeled "plantain chips" when they are made of green plantains that taste starchy, like potato chips. In Tamil Nadu, a thin variety made from green plantains is used to make chips seasoned with salt, chili powder and asafoetida. In the western/central Indian language Marathi, the plantain is called rajeli kela (figuratively meaning "king-sized" banana), and is often used to make fried chips.

Dried flour
In South-west, Nigeria, unripe plantains are also dried and ground into flour which is referred to as Elubo Ogede. it is considered as an healthy and nutritious food among the Yoruba's.

In southern India, dried plantain powder is mixed with a little bit of fennel seed powder and boiled in milk or water to make baby food to feed babies until they are one year old.

Drink
In Peru, plantains are boiled and blended with water, spices, and sugar to make chapo. In Kerala, ripe plantains are boiled with sago, coconut milk, sugar and spices to make a pudding.

Ketchup
The Philippines uniquely processes saba bananas into banana ketchup. It was originally invented in World War II as a substitute for tomato ketchup.

Nutrition
Plantain is 32% carbohydrates with 2% dietary fiber and 15% sugars, 1% protein, 0.4% fat, and 65% water, and supplying 122 kcal of food energy in a 100 g reference serving (table). Raw plantain is an excellent source (20% or higher of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin B6 (23% DV) and vitamin C (22% DV), and a good source (10–19% DV) of magnesium and potassium (table).

Containing little beta-carotene (457 micrograms per 100 grams), plantain is not a good source of vitamin A (table).

Comparison to other staple foods
The following table shows the nutrient content of raw plantain and other major staple foods in a raw form on a dry weight basis to account for their different water contents.

Allergies
Plantain and banana allergies occur with typical characteristics of food allergy or latex fruit syndrome, including itching and mild swelling of the lips, tongue, palate or throat, skin rash, stomach complaints or anaphylactic shock. Among more than 1000 proteins identified in Musa species were numerous previously described protein allergens.

title: Cooking banana