Epicurean bananas.

Last night we went to an informal dinner party. Nat's Epicurus seminar professor invited everyone to his (newly-acquired!) house for an Indian dinner and, of course, lots of philosophy talk.
The tables were set buffet-style, with labels written underneath each dish indicating what was in the bowl and how spicy it was. Quite a nice touch for us spice-conscious folks. His girlfriend had happily made all the food, from the spicy carrots & potatoes with coconut and curried lentils, right down to the raita and mint chutney. They heated the naan and even fried up the papadum right before we ate! Aaahhhh, papadum, my good friend. To top it all off, there was even a plate filled with burfi, one of my favorite desserts, and a couple of bowls of candied and non-candied fennel seeds. Pure delight.
The funniest moment of the evening for me came when another professor talked about a man he knew at Oxford College who ate bananas in a most peculiar manner. First, he would sort of massage the banana.

"That's how i make banana bread, sometimes!" i interjected. (it really is a time-saver.)

Then, he would cut it neatly in half, and grabbing one of the halves, proceed to extrude the mashed banana pulp rather vulgarly into his mouth. A sort of sucking in, toothpaste-squeezy motion. We were all cringing at his description, of course, until he continued:
Apparently the man had been a POW in Japan (during WWII, i presume), and the mortality rate of POWs over there was something awful, like 50 percent. So eventually they began to realize that it had to do with food-borne illness, and other bacteria surrounding the fact that they couldn't wash their hands. So it was paramount not to touch your food with your hands. This is how he learned the banana trick; it was a habit he had never grown out of. Of course, we were all shamed into thoughtful silence with this information.

Conversation eventually turned to how you can actually open a banana more easily from the bottom, or from what we (at least here in the states) think of as the bottom- the part without the convenient tab, or handle. Nat was extremely skeptical of this claim, but a couple of the other guys assured him that it was true. Fortunately, Monte had a bunch of bananas at hand, so the experiment began. i think Nat was somewhat stunned to discover how easy it actually was to open from the other end, as was i.
It reminded me of a cereal ad i saw once, featuring the requisite pitcher of milk and glass of o.j. in the background, and a perfect, opened banana off to one side. Something about the picture nagged at me, and i couldn't figure it out for a good ten minutes or so. Finally i realized- hey, nobody opens bananas like that! What gives? But, i guess now i've learned that some people do.
And that's the end of that.
A bunch of men sitting around, massaging bananas.
High point, for sure.