Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Banana Calling cocktail, inspired by National Banana Bread Day.
The most sought-after bread recipe across America - the one everyone goes bananas for according to King Arthur Baking - is banana bread. Who knew?
Bananas aren’t native to most of North America, and were only sparingly available in the U.S. throughout the 1800s. Ship captains had difficulty solving the puzzle of how to successfully transport a fruit that ripened (and rotted) so quickly.
But the advent of refrigeration at the turn of the 20th century soon made bananas accessible to American households nationwide, where they quickly became a breakfast staple. Bananas were also used in desserts, though more often as a garnish atop cake or pudding than a main ingredient.
Then, in the 1930s, two events converged that elevated the banana from bit player to star.
First, the Great Depression, which began with the 1929 stock market crash and lasted throughout much of the 1930s, made every scrap of food precious. Households were unwilling to throw away anything — even a “rotten” banana.
And second, Royal and other baking powder/baking soda manufacturers began mass producing their products, making these chemical leaveners widely available nationwide for the first time.
Thus the desire to use overripe bananas, paired with the ready availability of baking powder, inspired a horde of enterprising cookbook writers to come up with recipes for banana “quick bread” (as opposed to yeast bread).
By the early 1930s, banana bread recipes — using mashed bananas as the main ingredient, rather than banana slices as a garnish — had become ubiquitous, appearing in cookbooks from Better Homes and Gardens, Pillsbury Flour, the United Fruit Company (a chief banana importer), and more.
Fun Facts About Bananas
Did you know?
There are more than 400 varieties of bananas.
A banana is a berry and not a fruit.
A row of bananas is known as a ‘hand’, and a single banana is known as a ‘finger.’
First Banana Bread Recipe
One of the earliest known recipes for banana bread appeared in Pillsbury’s 1933 Balanced Recipes cookbook.
This recipe used mashed bananas, flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking soda, thick sour cream, and salt.
Over time, other ingredients like cinnamon, vanilla extract, and chopped nuts were added to the basic recipe to give banana bread even more flavor and texture.
Why Is Banana Bread Called Bread And Not Cake?
Banana bread is called ‘bread’ and not a cake because of the loaf tin it is typically baked in. Banana bread is also sliced like a load of bread and sometimes even toasted and buttered like we would with a slice of toast.
Although we call it banana bread, it is, by definition, actually a cake, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, which defines cake as “a sweet food made with a mixture of flour, eggs, fat, and sugar.”
That said, there are also recipes for banana cake, which differ from banana bread, but are also popular and tasty.
Today, there are endless variations on this classic quick bread, from chocolate chip banana bread to vegan banana bread - and all of them, including today’s Drink Of The Day, are likely approved by the Minions.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
