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Not many people know that the stem of the banana plant is edible, Malaysians call it 'umbut pisang'. We remove the soft inner section of the stem to use in salads or curries. The stems are soft, tender and soak up flavours really well. Usually only eaten during celebrations
I personally believe that this was how people used to consume wild banana plants before domestication
Some additional information in this blog (in Malay)
https://animhosnan.blogspot.com/2012/02/umbut-batang-pisang.html?m=1
But to be more accurate, the 'stem' of the banana plant is actually a roll of leaves. The actual stem is underground. The 'umbut' is actually the soft younger leaf shoots.
The older more fibrous parts of the stem can be dried out into fibre for rope. The leaves can be used as food wrapping or plates. If you know how to use a banana plant, not much goes to waste.
@ubi@ecoevo.social I think old, "forgotten" (in an urban setting) foods in Malaysia are all super interesting. For example, when it comes to Cempedak - I only recently learned that people used to cook the seeds (for long hours), and that they were edible. My father in law served it once, cooking it in a pressure cooker (which cut the cooking time by a lot) and they were surprisingly good even on their own, almost potato or ubi like.
My dad told me that people also used to cook the skin of the Cempedak and that it was actually really good, but I haven't tried that yet haha. My favourite type of culinary are foods that were essentially born from necessity (poverty), they're the perfect blend of unique, resourceful, and modesty - hence why SEA culinary is so colourful.
@irfan You can still get unripe cempedak cooked with the skin in KL. I had some last week. It's not that rare in Indonesian warungs. Those also taste nice with curry, it really soaks up flavour.
Fried cempedak seeds are edible, but very starchy. I guess you could prepare them better to make them nicer to eat.
There's a lot more less common foraged foods (a lot of it is actually available in the Chow Kit market).
@ubi@ecoevo.social ah yes, I think that's what my dad said too - that they cook/serve it as Gulai! I haven't tried cempedak seeds fried, but I guess it's possible haha. I feel like I've to compile a list of these type of foods to try.
We've good plenty of banana plants here in Brazil, but it never occurred to me! Nowadays we mostly eat the heart of palm from pejibaye (pupunha in Portuguese), but some decades ago we eat some other palm tree, from deforestation. I wonder if we could substitute pejibaye with the banana plants!
@lffontenelle I would think that the taste and texture would be different. Banana stems are quite soft.
I've always been curious about how Brazilians use banana plants. I was very surprised to learn that you don't use the leaves to wrap food.
Do you eat the banana flower? We also use that to make salads here. We call it 'Urap'.
@lffontenelle I am very amazed by this fact.