Kids Dish

I’ve started reading free magazines lately, or at least collecting them and letting them gather dust in the pram. My favourite is Fresh, the freebie put out by Woolworths (Australian supermarket chain) because I get a surreal enjoyment from spotting the blatant product placement - I prefer this sort of thing to “real” advertising because it’s generally a bit more entertaining, and it stops me spending a fortune on recipe magazines, which are just as much a tool for supermarket advertising anyway…

Ahem. This month’s topic on Fresh is banana propaganda. Apparently they’re back on the shelves, looking and tasting better than ever. Not cheaper than ever, note. And to be honest, they’re still looking pretty unappetising.

I’d just got the hang of bananas. They’re not my favourite fruit, and I’ll often go out of my way to avoid them. Occasionally I’ll get a surprising craving, but they have to be perfect (creamy but not too soft - I loathe squishy bananas). Mostly, though, I happily loathe them, and will be sickened by the smell.

But when Raeli started on bananas, they were like a gift from fairyland. She ate them and loved them, and they were always a good old reliable snack. I was constantly surprised at how cheap they were in the supermarket, and I kept us in bananas as much as I could.

Bananas, avocado and baby rice was basically her staple diet for a long time, and they eased the gap into more adventurous eating (more or less).

But then the hurricane came last March, and Australia’s banana crop was lost, and it was like the whole country went into mourning. Bananas did turn up occasionally, mainly shiny imports or sad, wilty green local products. The wilty green ones were matched with signs begging the customer to take pity on the farmers and Buy Australian.

There’s a whole generation of new toddlers for whom banana was *not* the “getting into solid foods” staple, and I find that really sad. Every now and then I buy one for Raeli (one! maybe two! never a whole hand, I’m not made of money)

They’re back with a new harvest, but they’re still pretty expensive and no, they don’t look as good as they used to. Maybe they never will, and it will be one of those weird banana nostalgia things that date people (ah, but the bananas before the 06 hurricane, thems was real bananas).

One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a long time before Australia takes bananas for granted again. Banana splits for the kiddies, Fresh Magazine? Forget that, we should be slicing them up like sushi fish and serving them in caviar-sized portions.

Sigh. I hate bananas, and I’ve missed them. I really do hope they come back with a vengeance. And let our avocadoes be safe this year, because I really couldn’t cope without them…