PLANTAIN. The plantain is the fruit of the muse sprientom, and is eaten to a most re markable extent by the inhabitants of the tor rid zone. Trom its nutritious qualities and, general use, it may, whether used in a TaW or dressed form, be regarded rather as a neces. sary article of food than as an occasional luxury. In tropical countries the plantain is one of the most interesting objects of cul tivation for the subsistence of man. Three dozen fruits will maintain a person, instead of bread, for a week, and appears better suited to him in -warm countries than that kind of food. Indeed the plantain is often the whole support of en Indian family. The fruit is produced from among the immense leaves in bunches, weighing 30, 60, and S011as., of 73 rioui colours, and of great diversity of form. It usually is long and narrew, of a pale yellow or dark red colour, with a yellow farinaceous flesh. But in form it varies to oblong and nearly spherical; and in colour it offers all the shades and variations of tints that the combination of yellow and red, in different proportions, can produce. Some sorts are said always to bo of a bright green colour. In general, the character of the fruit to an European palate is that of mild insipidity ; some sorts are even so coarse as not to be edible without preparation. The greater num
ber however are used in their raw state, and some varieties acquire by cultivation a very exquisite flavour, even surpassing the finest pear. In the better sorts the flesh has the colour of the finest yellow butter, is pf a rate taste, and melts in the mouth like mar malade. In the West Indies, plantains appear to be even more extensively employed than in , the Eastern world. The modes of eating them are various. The best sorts are served up raw at table, as in the East Indies, and•have been compared for flavour to an excellent reinette apple after its sweetness has been condensed by keeping through the winter.', Sometimes they are baked in their skins, and then they taste like the best stewed pears of Europe. They are also the principal ingre dient in a variety of dishes.
The Banana of hot countries is a mere va riety of the plantain, distinguished by being' dwarf, with a spotted stem. Botanists call it Musa Paradisiaca, in allusion to an old no-' tion that it was the Forbidden Fruit of Scrip ture.