Bananas are the best fruit
Like the lion is the king of the jungle, the banana is pretty much the king of the fruit.
First, the taste is nice and mild - it doesn't overpower you with flavor, which lends it to being used in combination with other foods more effectively. If you share my distaste for those salads with pieces of mandarin in them, you know what I mean: you eat those and the fucking tiny orange is all you taste. Fuck that shit, IMO. You toss some bananas in cereal, it's a nice subtle addition. They make awesome bread and are pretty much (along with berries) the prototypical delicious fruit shake ingredient.
Second, the texture is pretty much ideal. Maybe this is even the top thing about the banana to me. They're soft, they're not wet, they cut easily. They don't explode in your mouth like some kind of juice grenade like some berries and like those fucking tiny tomatoes you see in some salads. They're easy to eat and don't require excessive biting and chewing. Pretty much mainly due to their texture, they are the perfect addition to ice cream, in the form of the banana split. I don't know how they do it, but they stay nice and warm when surrounded by ice cream - you cut a piece off with your spoon easy as pie, pop it in your mouth, and experience a veritable symphony of taste, temperature, and texture composed of banana, ice cream, and hot fudge (BITCH YOU'D BETTER HAVE SOME HOT FUDGE UP IN THERE).
Third, ease of use and lack of mess. Open that shit up, hold it by the peel, finish eating, throw away. No cutting it up like a melon, no cores or seeds to deal with, no hands covered in juice, no debate as to what parts you should eat and what parts you should leave alone, like with watermelons where you're never sure just how close you want to get to the rind. Not to mention, it lets you know exactly when it's ready for eating. When it gets yellow with those little brown dots all over the peel, it's pretty much ready to give you a taste orgasm.
The only real downside of the banana is that it's only at optimal ripeness for a day or so. Those of us with refined palates know that you don't eat a banana when it's all yellow - you gotta wait for the brown dots to pop up. But you can't wait too long either, because you don't want the gross brown gunk getting into your banana. I would argue, however, that the same probably applies to a lot of other fruit as well, but they don't show their ripeness as easily as the banana does.
Next week: Carrots are the best vegetable.
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