In the late 19th century, cookbooks incorporated exotic ingredients drawn
from throughout the colonial world, in a sense boasting the imperial
connections and technological achievements that could supply these new
foods. Notice also how newly introduced ingredients appear in recipes—
often in strange and random ways. Consider, for example, the following
recipe for bananas that appeared in the 1896 edition of Fannie Farmer’s
Boston Cooking School Cookbook. We cannot recommend it.
Banana Salad
Remove one section of skin from each of four bananas. Take out fruit, scrape,
and cut fruit from one banana in thin slices, fruit from other three bananas
in one-half inch cubes. Marinate cubes in French Dressing. Refi ll skins and
garnish each with slices of banana. Stack around a mound of lettuce leaves.
Culinary Activity