To try to lighten things up a bit around here I present this topic for debate.
Having recently slipped badly on corfid on some banana skins I have just devoured a banana and remembered how amazed the members of my family were when I once peeled one from the non-stem end.
Asked why I mumbled that somewhere I had read that that was the correct way to do it.
Thus reminded of that incident I googled for yes "peeling banana"
and found a surprising 300,000 results.
some of the first ones are quite amusing for example:-
1.
http://www.leadingtoday.org/Onmag/may01/hb-may01.html
headed:-
What Is The Right Way To Peel A Banana
which opens
"A number of years ago I was lecturing to a college class on the subject of paradigms."
and explains and demonstrates what a paradigm is by retelling the story of an international student from a small, tropical nation,who when he was a small boy his grandmother taught him the right way to peel a banana.
this story used in class to show that there are other ways of doing or thinking sbout things
2.
http://www.slate.com/id/2067407/
pokes much fun at economists and others
3.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/21...anas_from.html
which solemnly explains why
"Peeling bananas from the other end is easier"
the clincher has to be as reported on:-
4.
http://www.dashes.com/anil/2002/06/28/banana_peeling
"According to our two experiments, peeling from the non-stem end greatly increases the chance that those strings will stick to the skin and come away with it, obviating the need to remove them separately. The attendant reduction in labor input has been particularly persuasive to the development economists, who have also pointed to potential productivity gains from using the stem as a handle."
that actually is a direct quote from 2 above.
a random look at the 10th page of results revealed
5.
http://www.big.uk.com/newsletter/98_sum/shows_insp.htm
which contains this gem of an idea
"Self-peeling Banana - One from Tim Hunkin’s ‘Almost everything there is to know’. A small amount of meths is placed in a milk bottle and lit. The peeled end of a banana is stuffed in and as the air cools the banana is pushed in by atmospheric pressure. I’ve done this hundreds of times without trouble, but it just wouldn’t work for Maggie Philbin (name drop) we used 8 bananas before it went"
[ August 25, 2006, 08:51: Message edited by: johnfowles ]
