Plantain

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Name Variations

 * cooking banana
 * platano
 * platano macho
 * Adam's fig
 * macho banana

About Plantain
Wikipedia Article About Plantain on Wikipedia

Plantains are hard, starchy bananas used for cooking, as contrasted with the soft, sweet varieties. Plantains are a staple food in the tropical regions of the world, treated in much the same way as potatoes and with a similar neutral flavour and texture when unripe. They are grown as far north as Florida, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Egypt, and southern Japan or Taiwan and as far south as KwaZulu-Natal and southern Brazil. It is assumed that the Portuguese Franciscan monks were responsible for the introduction of plantains to the Caribbean islands and other parts of the Americas. The Spaniards, who saw a similarity to the plane tree that grows in Spain, gave the plantain its Spanish name, platano.