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Banana snack industry goes stale

Not so long ago, the Central Java town of Majenang was famous for being the home of sale pisang, a unique snack made with bananas, but recently the market changed and the local snack industry faded to a fraction of its former success. Majenang, one of 23 districts in Cilacap regency in the far west of the province - bordering with Banjar and Ciamis regencies in West Java - has about 30 small factories producing the snack. Before the 1998 economic crisis, there were around 100 such producers, leading Cilacap administration to come up with the idea of making the snack the icon of Majenang. But with the crisis, the plan hit snags and many cottage industries were forced out of business. More than a decade later, the situation has yet to improve. "Before the crisis I could sell 2 or 3 tons of fried banana sweets to Jakarta. But things are difficult now," Yayat, a 61-year-old sale pisang business owner, told The Jakarta Post in Majenang. Today, Yayat produces only about 200 kilograms of sale pisang a month, and 99 percent of this is sold in Majenang. The snacks are sold in 250-gram packages, each costing around Rp 25,000 (US$2). Another snack producer, Juremi, said that before the crisis she could send 2 tons of sale pisang to Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya each month. "Now we only sell sale pisang for the local market," the 60-year-old said. Juremi said most of the snack producers were struggling to survive. "What's important is that business survives. If there are buyers in the city, that's enough. Sometimes we get an order from outside the city, but this is unreliable," she said. "Once, a distributor from outside the city wanted to place an order, but the price he offered was too low to cover our production costs. Rather than suffering losses, we preferred not to take it." Making sale pisang does not take long. Ripe bananas are cut into slices and dried in the sun. "If the sun is bright, the bananas will dry out in two days. But in a rainy season like this, it takes about four days," Juremi said. The dried bananas are then smeared with flour and deep-fried. After being drained, the banana chips are ready to be packaged and sold. The sale pisang business has supported many, including farmers and traders who sell raw bananas to cottage industries in Majenang, as well as banana snack makers such as Juremi and Yayat, and the vendors. Majenang district head, Heru Susedyo, said he was aware of the stagnant business situation. "Sale pisang was once so popular that the Cilacap administration planned to make it the icon of Majenang city, but the plan could not be realized because sales keep decreasing." http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/03/06/

Sunday 30 November 2008

homemade banana pudding

Ice cream is often called The Great American Dessert. Find out the history behind ice cream - sundaes and cones. Ice cream structure is both fascinating and confusing. The way we perceive the texture of ice cream when we consume it (smooth, coarse, etc.) is based on its structure, and thus structure is probably one of its most important attributes. Fried Banana ice cream has been so hot recently that my thoughts have turned to ice cream. Ice cream is about the simplest recipe I know for a cool desert. Smooth, creamy cherry ice cream with heart-shaped chocolate covered cherry candies and a thick chocolate sundae sauce swirl. I have served baked bananas as dessert many times. Slit bananas sprinkled with brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon, baked till soft, served with or without ice cream. That sugary lemony sauce looks and tastes divine, full of the ripeness of bananas. But banana in ice cream sounded intriguing. The banana ice cream really should be unsweetened. Find high quality chocolate if possible. The result was an ice cream we all allowed ourselves to like. The taste of bananas in ice cream was new to us all, and the garden lemon added an interesting and fragrantly refreshing note. It was concluded a winner! The banana Ice creams are very taste, however, was quite good. A cheap and easy ice cream recipe without cream: just evaporated milk, skim milk and sugar. I flavored the basic ice cream recipe with vanilla and banana puree to get rid of the evaporated milk taste but feel free to improvise! The pure banana ice creams in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice and the sugar. Please purchase online www.indomunch.com in NewYork city.
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