Editing Banana (section)

=== Informal classification ===

In regions such as North America and Europe, ''Musa'' fruits offered for sale can be divided into small sweet "bananas" eaten raw when ripe as a dessert, and large starchy "plantains" or [[cooking banana]]s, which do not have to be ripe. Linnaeus made this distinction when naming two "species" of ''Musa''.{{sfn|Valmayor|Jamaluddin|Silayoi|Kusumo|2000|p=2}} Members of the "[[Plantain (true)|plantain subgroup]]" of banana cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin America, correspond to this description, having long pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as "true" plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas.{{sfn|Ploetz|Kepler|Daniells|Nelson|2007|pp=18–19}}

The cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group, the [[East African Highland banana]]s.{{sfn|Ploetz|Kepler|Daniells|Nelson|2007|p=12}} Further, small farmers in Colombia grow a much wider range of cultivars than large commercial plantations do,<ref name="Gibert-2009">{{Cite journal |last1=Gibert |first1=Olivier |last2=Dufour |first2=Dominique |last3=Giraldo |first3=Andrés |last4=Sánchez |first4=Teresa |last5=Reynes |first5=Max |last6=Pain |first6=Jean-Pierre |last7=González |first7=Alonso |last8=Fernández |first8=Alejandro |last9=Díaz |first9=Alberto |display-authors=6 |date=2009 |title=Differentiation between Cooking Bananas and Dessert Bananas. 1. Morphological and Compositional Characterization of Cultivated Colombian Musaceae (''Musa'' sp.) in Relation to Consumer Preferences |journal=[[Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry]] |volume=57 |issue=17 |pages=7857–7869 |doi=10.1021/jf901788x |pmid=19691321|bibcode=2009JAFC...57.7857G }}</ref> and in Southeast Asia—the center of diversity for bananas, both wild and cultivated—the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" does not work. Many bananas are used both raw and cooked. There are starchy cooking bananas which are smaller than those eaten raw. The range of colors, sizes and shapes is far wider than in those grown or sold in Africa, Europe or the Americas.{{sfn|Valmayor|Jamaluddin|Silayoi|Kusumo|2000|p=2}} Southeast Asian languages do not make the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" that is made in English. Thus both Cavendish dessert bananas and [[Saba banana|Saba cooking bananas]] are called ''pisang'' in Malaysia and Indonesia, ''kluai'' in Thailand and ''chuối'' in Vietnam.{{sfn|Valmayor|Jamaluddin|Silayoi|Kusumo|2000|pp=8–12}} [[Fe'i banana]]s, grown and eaten in the islands of the Pacific, are derived from a different wild species. Most Fe'i bananas are cooked, but [[Karat banana]]s, which are short and squat with bright red skins, are eaten raw.<ref name="Englberger-2003">{{Cite journal |last=Englberger |first=Lois |year=2003 |title=Carotenoid-rich bananas in Micronesia |journal=InfoMusa |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=2–5 |url=http://www.musalit.org/pdf/IN040501_en.pdf |access-date=January 22, 2013  |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309162345/http://www.musalit.org/pdf/in040501_en.pdf |archive-date=March 9, 2016 }}</ref>