Sweet, delicious, and a great way to use up those blackened, soggy bananas from the fridge, what is it? Today is Banana Bread Day in the United States of America.
There are many baked goods that contain some fruit or vegetables in addition to the basic flour and eggs, making the texture of the dish lighter and juicier. There's carrot cake, I've read about zucchini brownies, and you could loosely include pumpkin and poppy seed cakes. Banana bread is another member of this big and happy family.
Bananas as a fruit first appeared on the North American continent in the 1870s, and it took some time for people to realise that they were also a great material for making delicious desserts. The recipe for banana bread, as we know it today, became popular in the 1930s, when baking powder was introduced to the market. Some culinary historians believe that banana bread was a by-product of the Great Depression, as housewives were reluctant to throw away their browned, otherwise expensive bananas in times of scarcity. Other sources claim that it was invented by baking powder manufacturers to promote their product.
As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The bottom line is that banana bread has remained popular ever since, and there are so many ways to make it, from chocolate to muffin tin to vegan. As proof of its popularity, Americans have even dedicated a national day to it.
If you want to make it, you can find countless recipes online and you're sure to find something to your liking. What you should do is start now by getting some stale bananas...
(source: wikipedia.org)
