Banana Bud

I don't know what this part of the banana tree is actually called, but my Thai friends call it the banana flower.

The first time I ate it (or even knew we could eat things other than bananas off of a banana tree) was when I was visiting a friend's family out in the countryside. In the afternoon we went outside looking for dinner. My friends showed me different plants we could eat, we picked some herbs, and the boys went swimming in the pond to find snails (yes, for dinner.) Then we came to the banana tree. Bananas for dinner? I wondered. But instead of cutting of the bananas, my friend cut off the bud at the end of the stock. It was stir-fried it with some seasonings and placed on the dinner table, a big tree stump, along with the snails that were cooked into a rice gruel. The banana bud was really good, tasting like a nondescript, slightly sweet vegetable. The snails, well, I sucked a couple of them from their shell and then went back for seconds from the banana flower dish.