I have watched women at home cook banana stem (thor in Bengali) many times but have never worked with it myself. So when I emboldened myself to buy some recently from the Indian grocery store, I assumed I knew how to prepare it for cooking and even called my mother to confirm. But as it turns out detail matters and so does hands-on experience. My production tasted about right but needed to be slow-cooked overnight to overcome the stringiness.
At that point, the dish did not resemble any thor recipe I know of. It tasted "fine" in the end (in large part because I was keen to make the most of a disaster) and got me scouting for a tutorial on how to properly prepare banana stem. My online wanderings brought me to the wonderful Bong Eats channel and I learned that my favorite kosambari uses banana stem. I was able to recall the taste from memory and it made sense that banana stem was an ingredient. I had never connected the dots and never thought to make it at home.
The experience with trying to cook banana stem - a very common meal item growing up, for the first time ever made me think about true and imagined familiarity with things including food. If I was venturing into cooking something I actually knew nothing about, chances are I would try to learn before I plunged in. Banana stem is so absolutely commonplace that it never crossed my mind that my familiarity with it maybe only imaginary. It's like being familiar with the woman who goes across my yard on her daily runs because I recognize her face.
She's been running this route for as long as I have lived in my home. I don't know her name and we have only exchanged smiles if I happened to be outside. This woman likely has a life full of rich detail outside her running. I know nothing about that. That was me meeting the banana stem on my kitchen countertop. Every detail about it was novel to me though I have "known" this vegetable for decades. This was the first time I got to learn about it, understand how it works or does not work.
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