Thursday, October 09, 2008

Puso'y Ponti

[Puso ng saging/banana heart and blossoms]

The banana heart, just like the human heart, is so vibrantly blood-red when fresh. The blossoms - those that form into bananas - are yellow, already giving an indication of their transformed sweet selves.

The packaging of the banana blossoms is quite interesting - already arranged in a bunch, but layered upon a red, triangular water-proof "skin." These "packets" of blossoms overlap one another in a round manner, forming the heart. The red triangular skins wrinkle and drop off to the ground in succession as the blossoms develop into fruits. The outermost packets develop first, the heart elongating as the innermost blossoms grow and become the bottom bunches.

[Floral bananas]

The red, water-proof skins are peeled off from the banana heart one by one. The banana blossoms underneath each skin are dewy, the skins thin and "frilled" at the bottom. Inside each blossom is a single "needle," with rounded tips like double-ended matchsticks. These are removed from the blossoms before cooking.

[Utel na puso/kaibuturan ng puso ng saging/heart core]

The innermost packets are so thin and tightly packed they don't have blossoms in them. They are also pale, making the heart core banana-yellow, with barely noticeable traces of red at the bottom. At this depth the skins are no longer peeled. For cooking, this core is sliced thinly and included with the harvested blossoms.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love it when I find something familiar. I am pretty sure I have eaten this before. Roz

Anonymous said...

I love ginataan ya puso'y ponti! I use the balayang variety and I put akdaw leaves for added flavor! Very delicious!!!axnbida

Kai said...

Wow, I haven't encountered that before, with akdaw? Gotta try that sometime, I hope I can find akdaw leaves.