Which end do Chinese people peel bananas from?

[anonymoose]

I just noticed, not for the first time, a Chinese person peel a banana from the non-stalk end. I always peel bananas starting from the stalk end, and although I've not really paid attention to it in the past, I think most British people also start peeling from the stalk end.

So do Chinese people generally start from the non-stalk end, or did I just witness an exceptional case?

[Kenny同志]

I peel bananas from the non-stalk end.

[xiaocai]

I peel from the non-stalk end if the stalk is still on, otherwise from the stalk end.

[skylee]

I peel from the stalk end (bend the stalk then pull). How do you peel from the non-stalk end?

[m000gle]

I've seen it done both ways... I was taught to poke a nail in the smaller end as a kid in North America, but always found it easier to open it using the stalk end.

Its pretty much to each their own. Or, whichever method you find more a-peel-ing... XD

[elliott50]

I had a related conversation with my chinese tutor about cucumbers. She said she did not understand how UK supermarkets can sell half-cucumbers, since in China, everyone would buy the flower-end half and nobody would buy the stalk-end half. Why? Because apparently every chinese person knows that the flower-end is the most tasty part.

This traditional view may explain how chinese people usually peel bananas: they peel them from the flower-end in order to eat the most tasty part of the fruit first.

[Lu]

I heard monkeys peel them from the flower end too, supposedly it's on youtube but I can't see that here. I'd think the monkeys would be the experts, there's probably some advantage to it that way. But I second Skylee, I don't know how one would peel from the flower end.

(And now it looks like I compare Chinese people to monkeys, which is unfortunate. No offense is intended, obviously.)

[imron]

That's not a monkey, but you can find related ones with monkeys in them.

[anonymoose]

As for monkeys, if one had to choose an end, I'd say non-stalk end, but if you watch

carefully, it looks more like they open bananas from the side.

[BaoMiHua]

I didn't want to derail this post to off-topic with monkey talk, but since everybody's now talking about monkeys I can join the fun

Earlier I was told that monkeys open bananas by grapping them and banging against something hard until it split open. So this summer I got to feed some bananas to some monkeys, and was little bit disappointed to find out that they don't in fact open like that, but just by peeling quite normally...

Just checked the photo evidence to see which end they prefer, and it seems that at least this particular group of monkeys pretty much open the bananas which ever end is closer to their mouth, biting it to separate the end and then peeling normally.

These were the mini-bananas, maybe next time need to take one normal sized banana and see if we get any banging action...

[muirm]

My understanding was peeling from the non-stalk end helps avoid the gross stringies getting stuck to the banana as you peel. I seem to remember having some luck with this, but I've since regressed back to using the stalk end.

I'm not Chinese so don't use this as a data point.

[Hugh]

This thread makes me laugh

[roddy]

The real issue is what to do with the skin

[crazy-meiguoren]

I use a chainsaw.

[aspi]

I just squeeze it like hell, sometimes it works sometimes it does not.

[crazy-meiguoren]

How about a compromise? Cut the banana in half and work from the middle. If it is reasonably ripe, one can use a knife instead of a chainsaw.

[AlexBlackman]

This thread makes me laugh

The very existance of this thread makes me laugh, it reminds me a lot of all the responses you get when you type"老外为什么" into google question search

[Guest realmayo]

nice, that's a great google search! I feel I'm learning a lot.....