Bananas at the Winter Fancy Food Show 2017

This year the Winter Fancy Food Show was bananas. Literally. I sampled an incredible number of a banana treats. Are bananas trending? I can’t say for sure, but here are the highlights. 

Tropical Fruit Stand makes a unique range of tropical jams using organically grown fruit from Sri Lanka. Their Banana Jam was easily my favorite, very fresh tasting and naturally sweet. It’s not organic but only because of the addition of ascorbic acid aka vitamin c, included as a preservative. 

I tried two different kinds of banana chips Banana Joe offers savory banana chips in strips, thinner than sweet banana chips and available in flavors like Thai Sweet Chili and Gruyere Cheese. 

The other type of banana chip was from SunTropics a company that makes products using fruit from the Philippines. Their banana chips are made from the Saba banana, a cultivar from the Philippines that's used raw but also in cooking. The chips were long strips, rather than small and round. They would be great with ceviche or the Filipino version, kinilaw.

Banana ice creams were also popular. There were a couple dairy free ones made from bananas as a base. Mr E’s Freeze is made from bananas and coconut milk. I liked the way the banana flavor came through in each flavor but it tastes like coconut too. Snow Monkey is made from bananas, apples, hemp seed protein powder and sunflower butter along with different flavorings. I particularly like their Cacao flavor. Both are great vegan options.

Traditional ice creams came in very untradtional banana flavors. All of them were absolutely swoon worthy (in addition to being spoon worthy). McConnell’s Banana & Salted Caramel was very luscious,  Snoqualmie’s Spicy Banana Brownie Custard is a richer style of ice cream, spicy from cinnamon with banana and brownie bits and Nancy’s Fancy Roasted Banana with Bourbon & Pecan Praline gelato offered another nice twist on plain old banana.