đź”— Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method I teach:
https://eliasyoder.com
Tired of bananas turning brown and mushy after just a few days? In this video, you’ll discover an old farmer’s secret that can help bananas stay fresh for weeks—possibly up to a month!
This simple storage method helps slow ripening, reduce spoilage, and keep your bananas firm and delicious for longer. No expensive gadgets or complicated steps—just a practical trick you can easily try at home.
Watch until the end for extra tips on preventing brown spots and avoiding the common storage mistakes that make bananas ripen too quickly.
#BananaStorage #FoodStorageTips #KitchenHacks #KeepBananasFresh #OldFarmerSecrets
https://eliasyoder.com
Tired of bananas turning brown and mushy after just a few days? In this video, you’ll discover an old farmer’s secret that can help bananas stay fresh for weeks—possibly up to a month!
This simple storage method helps slow ripening, reduce spoilage, and keep your bananas firm and delicious for longer. No expensive gadgets or complicated steps—just a practical trick you can easily try at home.
Watch until the end for extra tips on preventing brown spots and avoiding the common storage mistakes that make bananas ripen too quickly.
#BananaStorage #FoodStorageTips #KitchenHacks #KeepBananasFresh #OldFarmerSecrets
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00You bring a good bunch of bananas home, bright yellow and firm,
00:03and you set them on the counter, still in their plastic bag.
00:07Or you tuck the bag away in the cupboard.
00:09And three days later you come back, and they have gone soft and freckled.
00:14And by the end of the week they are black and weeping,
00:17and fit for nothing but the bin, and half the bunch has been wasted.
00:21And you tell yourself that is simply how bananas are, that they will not keep.
00:26But it is not so.
00:27The way most folks store a banana is the very thing hurrying it along.
00:32And with a few small changes, none of them costing you a cent,
00:36you can keep them yellow and firm for a great deal longer than you are getting now.
00:41Let me show you the whole of it.
00:43Here is the thing to understand, and once you see it, the rest makes plain sense.
00:48A banana ripens itself.
00:51It gives off a gas of its own making,
00:53and that gas is what turns it from green to yellow to black.
00:58And the warmer and closer it is kept, the faster that gas builds,
01:02and the faster it goes over.
01:04And most of that gas comes out at the stem, the crown where the bunch was cut.
01:09So everything I am about to show you does one of three things.
01:12It lets that gas escape instead of gathering around the fruit.
01:16It keeps the fruit cool and dry so the gas works slower.
01:20Or it slows the gas at the stem where it comes out.
01:23That is the whole science of a banana,
01:25and it is why the plastic bag in a warm cupboard is the worst place on earth for one.
01:30Quick word before we go further.
01:33My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me,
01:37the kind I am sharing today, and a great many more besides,
01:41are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
01:44I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
01:49If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught me lives,
01:55all in the one place.
01:56Now, to the bananas.
01:57My grandmother had no bananas in her girlhood.
02:01They were a rare thing then.
02:03But she had a rule for all fruit that holds just as true for these,
02:06and she said it to me many times.
02:09Fruit wants air, cool, and to be let alone.
02:12Air so it does not sweat, cool so it does not hurry,
02:16and let alone so it is not bruised and handled into spoiling.
02:20That is the whole of keeping any fruit,
02:22and every one of the ways I will give you is only that rule in a different shape.
02:27So let me take you through them in order, beginning the moment you get the bunch home.
02:31The first thing, before anything else, is to wash them and dry them properly.
02:36And most folks never wash a banana at all, thinking the peel protects everything.
02:41But the peel carries what it carries from the store and the journey,
02:44the residue and the sticky sap and the dust,
02:47and all that sitting on the skin does the fruit no good.
02:50So fill a basin with clean water and stir in a couple of tablespoons of plain white vinegar.
02:56Put the bananas in and rub the skins gently with your hands a minute or two,
03:01and that mild acid loosens the dirt and the sticky sap from the surface.
03:05Then rinse them well under clean running water so no vinegar smell is left on them.
03:10And now the part that matters most in that whole washing, dry them.
03:14Dry them thoroughly with a clean cloth or a paper towel and pay particular attention to the stems,
03:21drying the crown well, for damp sitting on that cut stem is exactly where the trouble starts
03:26and where the blackening begins.
03:28A banana put away damp will spoil far faster than one put away dry.
03:32So wash, rinse and dry well, especially the stem.
03:36Now the first way of keeping them, and it is the simplest and the one that does the most good,
03:41get them out of the plastic and into a basket that breathes.
03:45The moment you are home, take them out of that plastic bag,
03:48for the plastic is doing you real harm.
03:51It traps the moisture and the warmth around the fruit so the bananas sweat,
03:55and it holds all that ripening gas right in there against the skins where it hurries them along,
04:02and the damp softens the peel and lets the mold get a start.
04:06So out of the plastic, always, first thing.
04:10Instead, lay them in an open basket, or a wire or mesh basket, anything the air moves freely through.
04:17And do not crowd them or pile them one atop another.
04:21Give them room so the air can move all around each one, for the air flow is the whole point.
04:26Then set that basket in a cool, shaded spot, out of the sun and away from the stove
04:32or any other warm place in the kitchen, for heat is the enemy here.
04:37With the air moving round them and the warmth kept off, the gas disperses instead of gathering,
04:43the peels stay dry and firm, and your bananas hold yellow and good for days longer than they ever did
04:49in that bag.
04:50That one change alone, out of the plastic and into the open air,
04:54will make a greater difference than anything else I tell you today.
04:58The second way is to part the ripe from the green, and this is a small thing that folks never
05:03think of.
05:04Look at your bunch, and you will often see it ripening unevenly.
05:08Some already yellow and soft, and others still green and firm.
05:12Now remember that the ripe ones are giving off the most gas, and that gas is ripening everything near it.
05:19So leaving them all together means the ripe ones are hurrying the green ones along, and the whole bunch goes
05:25over at once.
05:26So take a knife and cut the bunch apart, separating the ripe from the green, and put them in two
05:32different baskets in two different places.
05:34Keep the ripe ones on the counter in a cool, shaded spot where the air moves, to be eaten soon.
05:40And put the green ones in the coolest place in your kitchen, out of the sun and the heat, and
05:46away from other fruit that also gives off that ripening gas.
05:49For apples and avocados are great producers of it, and will ripen your bananas for you if you set them
05:55side by side.
05:56Parted this way, your green ones come along slowly, and your ripe ones hold.
06:01And instead of a whole bunch spoiling at once, you have good bananas all through the week.
06:06The third way goes right to the source of the trouble, which is the stem.
06:11As I told you, that cut crown is where most of the ripening gas escapes.
06:15So if you slow it there, you slow the whole banana.
06:18And there is a simple way to do that with a bit of lemon.
06:21Cut a lemon and squeeze about a quarter of it into a small bowl, and add a teaspoon of clean
06:27water and stir it together.
06:28And that is all your preparation.
06:30Then take a cotton swab or a small bit of paper towel, dip it in that lemon water,
06:35and brush a thin coat over the stems of your bananas, covering the whole cut surface of the crown.
06:42Do not soak it. Make it a thin, even coat, for you do not want the stem sitting wet.
06:47The acid slows the browning on that cut, and puts a light barrier over the very place the gas is
06:53escaping,
06:54so the fruit softens more slowly.
06:56It does not change the taste of the banana one bit.
06:59Then set them in their basket in the cool, shaded spot as before.
07:03This little trick is especially worth doing if you have bought a great many bananas at once,
07:08or if your kitchen runs warm, for warmth is what hurries them most.
07:13A quarter of a lemon and two minutes of your time buys you several more good days out of every
07:18bunch.
07:19Now those three will keep your bananas firm and yellow far longer than the plastic bag ever did,
07:24and between them you will waste hardly any.
07:27But what of a real glut, when you have more bananas than any family can eat before they go over?
07:33For that, there are two old ways to put them by properly, and both are worth knowing.
07:38The first, and the one that needs no power at all, is drying them.
07:43Peel your ripe bananas and slice them into thin, even rounds.
07:46And if you like, you may dip the slices in a little lemon water to keep them from browning.
07:52Then lay them out in a single layer, not touching, on racks or trays,
07:56and dry them until they are leathery or crisp, however you like them.
08:01You may dry them in the sun in a hot dry spell, covered with a cloth against the flies,
08:07and brought in before the evening damp, or in a very low oven with the door propped a jar for
08:12those who have one,
08:13or in a drying rack over the stove.
08:16However you do it, they must be dried thoroughly, with no soft moisture left in them at all,
08:22for any dampness left in a dried fruit will mold in the jar.
08:25Then let them cool completely, and store them in a clean jar with a tight lid in a cool, dark
08:31place,
08:32and they will keep you for months, sweet as candy for the children, and lovely in your baking.
08:37That is how folks kept fruit for the winter for hundreds of years before anyone had a cold box,
08:43and it works as well now as ever.
08:45And the second, for those of you who keep a freezer, is simpler still.
08:49You peel the ripe bananas, break them into chunks or leave them whole,
08:53put them in a bag with the air pressed out, and freeze them.
08:57Frozen banana keeps for months, and is perfect for your baking and your cooking after,
09:02and you take out just what you need.
09:04I have no such machine myself, but many of you do,
09:07and there is no sense in my keeping a good tip from you for that.
09:11And whatever you do, when a banana does go too far, dark and soft and past eating out of hand,
09:17do not throw it out.
09:18That is the very best banana there is for a loaf of banana bread or a cake.
09:23For the softer and darker it is, the sweeter and stronger the flavor.
09:27A blackened banana is not a spoiled banana.
09:30It is a banana that has become an ingredient.
09:33Mash it into your batter, and nothing at all is wasted.
09:37Now think a moment about why nobody taught you this.
09:40Why you have thrown away half of every bunch you ever bought,
09:43and thought it was just the way of bananas.
09:45It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it.
09:49The bananas are handed to you in a plastic bag,
09:52because the plastic is cheap for the store and stacks neat.
09:55Not because it does the fruit a bit of good, for it does the opposite.
09:59And there is no money in teaching you to tear that bag off,
10:02part the green from the ripe, and dab a little lemon on the stems.
10:06For the woman who wastes half a bunch buys twice as many bunches.
10:10So the plain old knowing that fruit wants air and cool and letting alone,
10:15which every grandmother had by heart, just stopped being handed down,
10:19because no one profits by the telling.
10:22And a bin full of black bananas came to seem the ordinary way of things,
10:26when it never was.
10:27The mending of it costs you nothing at all.
10:30You wash them and dry the stems well.
10:32You tear off the plastic and lay them in an open basket
10:36in a cool shaded spot with the air moving.
10:38You part the green from the ripe and keep them from the apples.
10:42And you dab a little lemon on the crowns.
10:44And your bananas stay yellow and firm through the week,
10:47instead of going black by Thursday.
10:49And what you cannot eat, you dry or freeze or bake into bread.
10:54That is how it comes home.
10:56One torn bag, one dab stem at a time.
10:59The keeping of your own pantry back in your own hands.
11:02So here is what I would ask of you.
11:04This week, when you bring your bananas home,
11:07take them straight out of that bag and try these ways.
11:10And then come back and tell me in the comments
11:12how many days longer they held for you against how they used to go.
11:16For I do love to hear a thing saved that used to be thrown out.
11:20And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house.
11:24For the warm, damp country ripens fruit far faster than the cool dry.
11:28And the old houses have the cool pantries and cellars that make all this easier.
11:33And I learn from every one of you how the keeping goes where you live.
11:36And if your own mother or grandmother had a way of keeping fruit I have not named,
11:41tell me that most of all.
11:42For that is how this goes.
11:44We share what we were given.
11:46I read every comment and I learn from you the way the old women learn from one another across the
11:52fence line,
11:53one pantry and one season at a time.
11:56Next time I will show you the old ways with the rest of the fruit bowl,
12:01the apples and the pears and the berries, each of which wants its own handling,
12:06and the drying and putting by that keeps a whole season's fruit sweet for the winter.
12:11There is a right and an old way to keep near everything the market and the garden give.
12:18And almost none of it costs a cent.
12:20But this week you start with the one bunch.
12:24You wash them and dry those stems.
12:26You tear off the plastic and set them in an open basket in the cool shade.
12:31You part the green from the ripe and you dab a bit of lemon on the crowns.
12:36And you watch a bunch hold firm and yellow through the whole week where before it was black by Thursday.
12:44And you will understand, as my grandmother said of all fruit,
12:48that a banana wants only air, cool, and to be let alone.
12:52And that it was never the fruit that failed you, but the bag it came home in.
12:56The pantry kept the plain old way is the one that remembers how the old women wasted nothing at all.
13:03And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
Comments