In Jamaica plantains are boiled, roasted or most commonly fried. Fried sweet plantains are eaten on the side with savory dishes like Stew Peas and Rice or Ackee and Saltfish.
Is plantain Jamaican or African?
Fried plantain is a dish cooked wherever plantains grow, from West Africa to East Africa as well as Central America, the tropical region of northern South America and the Caribbean countries like Haiti to Cuba and in many parts of Southeast Asia, where fried snacks are widely popular.
What nationality eats plantains?
CENTRAL AMERICA & CARIBBEAN
In countries in Central America and the Caribbean, such as Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Jamaica, the plantain is either simply fried, boiled or made into plantain soup.
Do Caribbeans eat plantains?
Platanos or plantains are cooking bananas. They are extremely popular in South America and the Caribbean. This easy plantain side dish adds a nice sweetness to any meal.
Is plantain native to Jamaica?
Jamaican plantains are native to India and are grown extensively in the tropics. They are susceptible to strong winds as they are a plant rather than a tree. Plantain plays an important role in the Jamaican cuisine, it is used as vegetable, source of carbohydrate and deserts.
Which country invented plantains?
Plantains are believed to have originated in Southeast Asia. Two groups of plantains are thought to have a common origin: the horn plantain and the French plantain. Both types grow in India, Africa, Egypt, and tropical America. The French plantains also occur in Indonesia and the islands of the Pacific.
Which country consumes the most plantains?
The countries with the highest volumes of plantain consumption in 2019 were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.7M tonnes), Cameroon (5.2M tonnes), and Ghana (4.2M tonnes), together comprising 36% of global consumption.
Who brought plantain to Jamaica?
The Gros Michel is said to have been introduced to Jamaica by Jean Francois Pouyat, a French botanist and chemist who settled here in 1820. He brought the fruit back from Martinique to his coffee estate in an attempt perhaps to diversify his produce.
Is plantain a vegetable or a fruit?
fruits
Bananas and plantains are both fruits that come from the same family of plants. Though they look alike, they have very different flavor profiles.
Why are plantains popular in the Caribbean?
Spanish and African slave traders brought the fruit with them to the Caribbean on slave ships. Plantains proved to be a cheap and filling provision for enslaved men and women. The abundance of plantains and their versatility made them the staple ingredient that they are today.
What culture cooks with plantains?
Plantain fruit
So in America, this food is not only common in Peruvian cuisine, but also Bolivian, Colombian, Ecuadorean and Brazilian kitchens, as well as in some Central American countries.
Who brought plantains to Africa?
It is said that In the 15th century plantains were found by Portuguese explorers in Western Africa and taken back to there home for planting. Portuguese explorers found bananas in western Africa and planted some back home.
How do Jamaicans pronounce Caribbean?
Caribbean
In America, Caribbean is pronounced with an emphasis on the be, but in Jamaica, we place the emphasis on the rib. Thus, we say Caribbean, whereas Americans say Caribbean.
Is plantain a banana?
A plantain is actually a type of banana, but with a different flavor and culinary use. Like bananas they are originally from Southeast Asia, but they’re grown all over the world today. They tend to be larger in size than bananas, and have a thicker skin. Plantains are also starchier and lower in sugar than bananas.
How do you say plantain in the Caribbean?
One of the explanations offered is that people from the English speaking-Caribbean are more likely to say plan-TIN, though some of my African-American friends and one British friend said that’s also how they pronounce the word.
What are Jamaican bananas called?
The traditional varieties of bananas grown in Jamaica include Robusta, Williams (Ziv), Grand Nain, Lacatan, and Gros Michel.
Do they grow bananas in Jamaica?
Countries where bananas are a main export crop are Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname and Colombia.
Which ethnic group brought banana to Jamaica?
the Spanish
Bananas, native to Southeast Asia, were brought to Jamaica in the early 16th century by the Spanish. Today, bananas are an important source of farm income, especially in St. Mary, Portland and St. James, and the fruit is a very popular staple among Jamaicans, whether green or ripe.
Are there bananas in Africa?
Uganda is the largest producer of banana and plantain in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), followed by Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Banana and plantain are cultivated in a wide variety of environments. Plants produce fruit year round, can produce for up to one hundred years and are suitable for intercropping.
Are bananas native to Africa?
Indeed, banana cultivation was the economic backbone of some African kingdoms that thrived before European colonization. Until recently, most African scholars assumed that the banana, which is native to New Guinea, was not introduced into Africa earlier than about 2000 years ago.
What came first banana or plantain?
“If the term ‘crop’ signifies a plant that can be grown for subsistence, then the plantain and the edible diploid bananas may indeed have been the first fruit crop.” It might be easiest, then, to begin—but not end—with the banana, whose origins are generally considered to be in Southeast Asia between 8000-5000 BCE.