Introduction:
My affection for banana starts with a 1945 establishment nestled behind the harbour at a typically English sea-side town and extends to the roadside running perpendicular to the Red River in Hanoi, and the many nuances in between.
As a child, and my ever receding memory still serves me well in to remembering when I was 5 years old, I yearned for two things in my life. The first was a summer holiday stay with my grandparents and a very close second was the Harbour Bar in a quaint little seaside town called Scarborough on the east coast of Yorkshire. The Harbour bar was an Aladdin’s cave of sweet and holiday-spirit delights. Walking in the door was like being dropped in to a place so wonderful, so magical that even Charlie Bucket would not have believed it. The smell of every flavour of ice-cream and then chocolate, cherries, peaches, marshmallows, sweet syrups, lemonade and the sea breeze that wafted through has never left me. As I write this now I close my eyes and I am back there. I can here jovial chatter, the clinking of glass, the crunching of wafer, the fizz of vanilla ice-cream being dropped in to soda, and ice-cream churners churning. And within all that two amazing treats stood out, the two that would cause me to umm and ahh each visit; which one should I pick? The first was their iconic Knickerbocker Glory; a glass as high as the ceiling filled with strawberries, peaches in sweet syrup, ice-cream, cherries, whipped cream, chocolate bits and a big wafer triangle adorning the top. I would choose this first and then remember the second one, the banana split. A banana sliced lengthways filled with three scoops of the house-made vanilla ice-cream, fresh whipped cream, unctuous chocolate sauce, chopped peanuts and the famous wafer. Of all the choices I have had to make through my life this was the most difficult, but by far the most enjoyable.
Roll on many years later; wandering through the backstreets of Hanoi with my young daughter, we passed some ladies at the roadside cooking banana fritters. At first we walked past, although I could see in my daughter’s eyes disappointment. I was taken back to the seaside town and thought about how I would have felt walking past the Harbour Bar and not being allowed to go in. We turned back and sat down with the ladies, communicating in mimes. We were given a banana fritter each with a little sweet sauce, and as I bit in I resumed my affection for banana. As I turned to my daughter I could see a glint that I am sure my mother saw in mine when I first tasted that banana split (and the Knickerbocker Glory).
This recipe is something I have created to celebrate banana, taking my influence from childhood and travels.
