The Original Banana Pancake

Banana pancakes are southeast Asia's ubiquitous backpacker food, found at night markets, on hostel and guesthouse menus, in front of bus and train stations - anywhere travellers on a tight budget converge. It's not for nothing that the routes favored by backpackers up, down, and around this region are sometimes referred to as the 'Banana Pancake Trail'.

I've never understood the attraction. Many years ago I sampled my first - and last - banana pancake in Krabi, Thailand. Having learned about this salve for the Western sweet tooth from my Lonely Planet guide, I eagerly placed an order with a vendor on Ao Nang's beach-hugging main boulevard. What I ended up with - a rubbery round of dough browned on a margarine-slicked griddle, folded over a few slices of tasteless banana, and doused in sweetened condensed milk - did not live up to the hype. All grease and sweet and not much else, it had no definable flavor and held no discernible appeal. Banana pancakes and I never crossed paths again.

Not until last month, that is, when Dave and I encountered this gregarious vendor on Sumatra, at the edge of Bukittingi's fabulously sprawling market. She's selling pisang panggang. That's 'grilled bananas', literally speaking. A more accurate, culinarily-minded translation would be 'the ultimate banana pancake'.

She starts with a, well ... banana, popping it onto a dimunitive, coconut husk-fired grill. After tending and turning it for a few minutes, until the fruit is charred and squishy-soft, she places it in a plastic-lined wooden press and flattens it into a, well ... pancake.

After turning the pancake onto a piece of banana leaf she tops it with a generous layer of freshly grated coconut mixed with deep brown gula aren (palm sugar), and hands it over in exchange for all of 2000 rupiah (about 25 US cents).

Now this is the banana pancake that all of southeast Asia's foreign wanderers - backpackered and otherwise - should be seeking. It's certainly the banana pancake of my dreams. Folded over, the heat of the mashed banana melts the smoky, slightly bitter palm sugar. What's more, this particular variety of the fruit evinces a subtle, citrusy tartness that plays beautifully off of sweetness of the sugar and coconut. Fruit and sugar - a simple combination that, in the hands of this vendor, is transformed into an ethereal, utterly satisfying treat.

Pisang pangang vendor, Bukittingi market, upper level. After 10 am.

Comments

[CW]

Ohh, that looks delectable! It's cruel - I havent had a banana in months - not since storms wiped out much of our banana crop and bananas cost AU$12 a kilo in the shops...

[Sticky]

The flattening technique reminds me of the banana fritters that are served up street-side in Hanoi during the winter. The similarity ends there - your banana pancake wins hands down. That is right up my alley.

Now, be honest, how many did you eat?

[RST]

Rather different, but also going in the direction of flattening a banana is that wonderful Chicago-Puerto-Rican invention called the jibarito, really one of the most brilliant street food forms to have emerged from my city.

Here's Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune on the jibarito:

http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2003/vol7n33/SagaSandwich-en.shtml

[RST]

Also flattened are those wonderful things called tostones throughout the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto-Rico, Dominican Republic; but in Haiti, they are called bananes pesees-weighted-down bananas). Unripe bananas (not ripe ones as above) are sliced into rounds, fried on each side, flattened (usually with the bottom of a glass), and then refried. The flattening occurs between the double frying, which is essential. Tostones are not street food, but are usually served, along with rice and beans, as the starch component of a meal.

Certain kinds of banana chips as well as various banana delicacies (such as the pinasugbo) might also require a bit of flattening. But the process of (traditional Indonesia/Filipino) banana chip-making is a little unclear to me. I have to look this up.

Richard
Opplicario@aol.com

[shaz]

looks amazing... i might just try out a home made version later! looks too delectable!

[RST]

I checked: the Visayan (Ilonggo) specialty called pinasugbo is not pressed at all. Most kripik pisang (Indonesia banana "chips") are not flattened either but take on the flattened look through the drying process.

As a veteran of the whole Lonely Planet/banana pancake trail, I must say that I never cared too much for it while travelling through Asia after school. But recalling it has brought back so many fond and tearful memories of glorious slackerdom in marvellous timeless villages like Sagada or Mae Hong Song or even in chaotic raucous "backpacker's ghettos" like the Jalan Jaksa neighborhood of Jakarta. Even Alford and Duguid were forced by the sheer tug of nostalgia for "that" way of life to include a recipe (was it for the banana pancake or was it for the shake?) of it in their book.

Richard
Opplicario@aol.com

(Travelling to China in October: maybe I will encounter "the" banana pancake again in Kunming, or in Yangshuo...)