Plantains are those fascinating banana-looking fruit surrounded by a bit of mysticism. Are they really fruit or vegetable? Do we eat them raw or cooked? When should we eat them? They start out bright green and hard, move toward beautiful yellow, slowly get black specs and in the end turn completely black and soft. This change of life takes only a few days and plantains can be enjoyed at every stage of ripeness. They are the cousin of the common banana we’re all familiar with (plantains are sometimes called cooking bananas). The color of a plantain is directly proportional to the level of sugar in the fruit. I recently took a trip to Puerto Rico recently and re-found my love for plantains in many dishes and stages of ripeness. I had some great Mofongo (mofo-what?), tostsones and baked plantains. I’ll dive into the history and execution of these dishes as well as some interesting facts about the plantain. Bananas! (now I feel like a cool 14 year old…girl…mm..not so cool). Let’s continue down banana road. Continue reading Plantains