The Canary Islands produce around 430.000 tonnes of platanos, bananas, a year. Most of these are exported to Spain and other European countries. But luckily they don’t export all bananas, so you can still try the locally grown bananas here in Gran Canaria. Bananas and tomatoes are the main export product from Canary Islands.

You will find Canarian bananas in every supermarket, local market or farmers market. It’s always a good idea to try and buy locally produced food. The locally produced bananas are the main variety that is being sold everywhere.

• Buying local fruits helps the local economy
• The fruit has traveled less and will taste better when it’s ripe. This is because the bananas have not been refrigerated, which affects the taste in a negative way.

In my experience, bananas from Canary Islands definitely have a fuller taste and I eat them much more than I did back in the Netherlands.

As you can see from the picture it’s fairly easy to spot the ripening state of bananas.

The sweet spot is between ripe and very ripe but be careful because once the banana is ripe it goes bad pretty fast. It usually moves from ripe to overripe within 1-2 days, especially if the bananas are kept in a closed bag or if piled with other fruits that increase ripening speed. Fruits that speed up the ripening process are for example apples and kiwis.

Let’s talk price. Usually buying bananas in supermarkets is the worst choice you can make, they are so expensive there and they’re the same bananas you can find anywhere.

At the time of writing these are the prices in some supermarkets: 
– Mercadona: 1,69€/kg
– Hiperdino: €1,67/kg (on offer 0,99€/kg)
– Alcampo: 1,35€/kg

My suggestion is to look in small fruits markets or shops. The usual good price for bananas is around 0,89€/kg. If you get them single, which are the ones who got detached from the main bunch, you can get them for 0,69€/kg.

So get some Canarian bananas make a banana bread and invite me for tea! We will then slice the banana bread, put it on a tray, put a cube of butter on top with some vanilla and grill it for 3 minutes at 230°. Thank me later!