field).
When dried, and sprinkled with brown sugar, the banana is, also, weight
for weight, as nutritious as the highly sustaining fig.
But
it is in its fresh state, clad in its familiar primrose tunic, that the
banana chiefly appeals to the thoughtful dietist. Its creamy
succulence, and delicate odour are inviting ; and its pleasant sapor is
a prelude to good digestion. Dependent as the said sapor is on an
ethereal body which the coal-tar investigators have not yet been able
to imitate by any chemical essence, it is a subtle stimulus to all
subsequent alimentary processes. No sense of drowsiness, or oppression
follows on a meal of bananas, though this meal of the said fruit may
have been a bulky one. Mr. Browne has seen a West Indian negro consume
twenty full-grown bananas at a sitting, and display unwonted vivacity
thereafter. Again, it seems more than probable that this mild and
gentle fruit may become a powerful auxiliary to the temperance
reformer. It mixes badly with alcohol in any form, and becomes
difficult of digestion when taken with any spirit; therefore the
allegation is made that an habitual use of bananas as food diminishes
the drink-craving where this exists. As an instance in point, Captain
Parsons, of Port Kingston, (the Direct Imperial Line), told Mr. Browne
that since the men on his ship, seamen and stokers, have been allowed
to partake of bananas at discretion, (these fruits always forming a
considerable part of the cargo,) their consumption of alcoholic
beverages has been greatly reduced.
To
relish the banana is not what is called an acquired taste. This fruit
is acceptable at all ages. The infant sucks it greedily ; children
devour it with gusto ; the adult appreciates it; and the toothless
octogenarian
