On holiday last week, I learned how to peel a banana.My friend Emma showed me how the conventional method that had served me reasonably well for nigh on forty years was a sub-optimal solution to banana-peeling.
I've always held the banana with the stalk at the top (actually this is upside-down, given that bananas grow upwards, but you know this already, don't you?) I then pull back the stalk and hope that the kinked stem splits. This then lets my finger in to begin the peeling. This is the way the banana shown here has been peeled. I bet you do the same.
Turns out that monkeys do things differently. They hold their 'nanas with the stalk down (the 'right way up') and pick at the junction of the four sections, at the end of the fruit. This doesn't sound promising, but I had to try it and I confirm it works really well.
This made me wonder how I learned my conventional inferior technique. I guess my parents passed it on to me and, given that my interest has always been primarily in tucking in to the banana, I've never really stopped to ask if there was another way in. I probably live with lots of habits that have developed over a lifetime that are less than the best for me and those around me. What a thought.
