Bananas are not just bananas. The varieties have very different sizes and textures. Williams are massive and creamy (you get them in mainland supermarkets). Cavendish is likewise tasty, big and creamy. In Hawaii, we eat and grow a lot of apple bananas. They are smaller, firmer, and less sweet with a mouthfeel that is completely different than Williams or Cavendish. They grown in Africa, South America and Asia but most locals swear the Hawaii-grown versions are different and better. Once you've gone apple banana, its really hard to go back -- the other varieties taste almost too sweet and unsubtle and they lack the faint apple-scent perfume thrown off after each bite. And Hawaii is the only place in the U.S. that I know of where you can buy apple bananas in a regular supermarket (some specialty food stores and farmers markets may stock them on the mainland but I've never seen them myself.) You can order apple bananas seasonally from Harry and David but, of course, those apple bananas come from Richard Ha's Farm on the Big Island in Hawaii.

One of my fave little bakeries in Honolulu, the Campbell Avenue Bakery in Kapahulu, takes apple bananas, dips them in dark Belgian chocolate, puts them on a stick and freezes them. Mmmmmmm! It's actually an old local-style desert, a frozen apple banana. The dark chocolate perfectly sets off the firm and sweet but-not-too sweet apple banana. Eating only one is, ummm, a challenge.

—Alex, 07/08/06