Everyone seems to say that Musa Basjoo -- the hardiest banana of them all -- has inedible fruit. However, my wife is Cambodian and makes all sorts of dishes using banana leaves and banana blossoms. Is the Basjoo culinarily useful for something other than its fruit?
Musa Basjoo
I think there are many pants that are said to be "inedible" when in fact they are. Sometimes it is because that particular variety is grown for foliage and blooms, not to be eaten. Sweet potato vine come to mind, which is completely edible, but not very tasty at all, since it has been cultivated for it's foliage, not it's tuber.
I haven't grown basjoo myself, but have grown Musa acuminata 'Rajapuri'. I've used the leaves as a wrap when grilling fish and of course, the fruit is great.
Using the blooms in cooking sounds quite interesting.
Barb
While I'm fairly certain the fruit is edible in the sense that it's not poisonous, it is, however, really stringy and chock-full of hard seeds about the size of buckshot...
IIRC, you can still use the leaves for wrapping food and stuff like that.
Thanks! I will plant some and try it out.