The Weirdest Bananas I’ve Ever Seen

I have strong feelings about bananas. I eat one every day and it HAS to have black speckles and absolutely no green tinge whatsoever. Typical shopping experiences usually unfold as follows: I walk into my main grocery store, usually Stop & Shop, and the banana bunches are green as can be. I immediately assess how many days I will be banana-less, waiting for them to ripen and its usually at least 4 days – and I get depressed at the prospect. So I buy the bunch, as an insurance for the next week, and then make another trip to my local tiny Asian market where they often have very ripe bananas. I buy a bunch of those and eat those until they are gone and if my timing is right, then the Stop & Shop bunch will have ripened and I will flow from one week into the next getting my banana fill. Only it never works out so perfectly. Somewhere in there nature’s ripening meter is not on my schedule and I end up with no bananas to eat and since the Asian store is sometimes out of ripe bananas, I’m screwed. Sigh. I know, not a big problem when it comes to life, but a produce issue nonetheless (my girlfriends call this a first world problem. Kind of like when you get depressed because the Chanel counter is out of the limited edition lipgloss).

Anyway, it’s usually about banana bunches that are way too green or so overripe they have to get into the freezer, stat.

Behold the image above. Same bunch. Bananas at wildly different ripening points. I have never seen anything like this in my life and when I saw the bunch, I had to buy it. Just for oddity sake. My boyfriend Damon said the ripe one looked abused. If any of you have a clue as to how this was possible, I would love to know your thoughts. When I ate the ripe one, it was not bruised (abused), it was truly ripe! And then the others ripened as you would expect….any ideas?