BLUE CHEESE COOKIES

When they began calling at Avonmouth in 1901-3 the banana boats were known to the casual dock workers as the 'plum' boats because, unlike other ships, they offered a couple of days of solid work with overtime and a good pay packet.

At the end of hostilities and following pleas from the colony to the Ministry, the first shipment from Jamaica (containing ten million bananas) on the Fyffes ship S.S.Tilapa docked at Avonmouth in December 1945.

As a new generation of Britons sampled the fruit, the trade was rebuilt to its pre-war level and beyond. In the 1950s, more bananas were imported from the Windward Islands (Dominica, Grenada, St.Lucia and St.Vincent). This group of islands is around 1000 miles closer to the UK than Jamaica.

When a ship loaded with bananas arrived at Avonmouth in December 1945, to be greeted by hundreds of children who had never seen a banana.

The arrival of the first bananas at Avonmouth after the war children born during the war had never seen one or how to open and eat it..

Banana facts

3 medium size bananas weigh approximately 1 pound.

A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.

As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.

Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem. They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.

Bananas are a good source of vitamin C, potassium and dietary fiber.

Bananas are America's #1 fruit.

Bananas are available all year-round. They are harvested every day of the year.

Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activity because they replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.

Bananas are not grown commercially in the continental United States. They are grown in Latin and South America from countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala.

Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. If left on the plant, the fruit splits open and the pulp has a "cottony" texture and flavor. Even in tropical growing areas, bananas for domestic consumption are cut green and stored in moist shady places to ripen slowly.

Bananas are perennial crops that are grown and harvested year-round. The banana plant does not grow from a seed but rather from a rhizome or bulb. Each fleshy bulb will sprout new shoots year after year.

Bananas have no fat, cholesterol or sodium.

Bananas were officially introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Before that time, bananas came to America on the decks of sailing ships as sailors took a few stems home after traveling in the Caribbean.

Each banana plant bears only one stem of fruit. To produce a new stem, only two shoots - known as the daughter and the granddaughter - are allowed to grow and be cultivated from the main plant.

In 1516, Friar Tomas sailed to the Caribbean bringing banana roots with him; and planted bananas in the rich, fertile soil of the tropics, thus beginning the banana's future in American life.

In 2001, there were more than 300 banana-related accidents in Britain, most involving people slipping on skins.

In Eastern Africa you can buy banana beer. This beer is brewed from bananas.

In some lands bananas were considered the principal food. Early travelers and settlers would carry the roots of the plant as they migrated to the Middle East and Africa. From there Portuguese traders carried banana roots to the Canary Islands, where bananas are still grown commercially.

In South East Asia, the banana leaf is used to wrap food (in the place of plastic bags and cling wraps), providing a unique flavor and aroma to nasi lemak and the Indian banana leaf rice.

India is by far the largest world producer of bananas, growing 16.5 million tonnes in 2002, followed by Brazil which produced 6.5 million tonnes of bananas in 2002. To the Indians, the flower from the banana tree is sacred. During religious and important ceremonies such as weddings, banana flowers are tied around the head, for they believe this will bring good luck.

Over 96% of American households purchase bananas at least once each month.

Some horticulturists suspect that the banana was the earth's first fruit. Banana plants have been in cultivation since the time of recorded history. One of the first records of bananas dates back to Alexander the Great's conquest of India where he first discovered bananas in 327 B.C.

The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.

The banana market is controlled by five large corporations - Chiquita (25%), Dole (25%), Del Monte (15%), Noboa (11%) and Fyffes (8%). Most bananas are grown on huge plantations, controlled by these corporate giants. The remaining banana production for export comes from small banana producers.

The banana plant

Maiolica e un termine usato anticamente per definire quei prodotti ceramici provenienti dall'isola di Maiorca, che originariamente erano ricoperte da una superficie di smalto stannifero (Diossido di stagno, SnO2). Nello studio della ceramica antica il termine e spesso abbinato alla parola "arcaica" "(maiolica arcaica)" semplicemente per dire che si tratta di una tipologia della ceramica medievale.

Spesso erroneamente, anche sui dizionari, viene considerata maiolica tutta la ceramica di terracotta smaltata o un oggetto di tale materiale, ma in realta ci sono tre passaggi fondamentali che identificano questo metodo decorativo: infatti l'oggetto biscotto (cioe gia cotto una prima volta) viene smaltato, "decorato soprasmalto" e spruzzato di un sottile strato di cristallina-vetrina trasparente (fase caratterizzante). Senza quest'ultima fase si avra una mezza maiolica o detto piu semplicemente una decorazione soprasmalto.
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Majolica is a term used to define those ancient pottery from the island of Majorca, which were originally covered an area of enamel stanniferous (tin dioxide, SnO2). In the study of ancient ceramics the term is often combined with the word "archaic" (archaic majolica) "simply to say that this is a type of medieval pottery.

Often wrong, even in dictionaries, is regarded throughout the tiled ceramic glazed earthenware or object of such material, but in reality there are three basic steps that identify this decoration method: in fact the cookie object (that is already cooked for the first time) is enamel, "decorated overglaze and sprayed with a thin layer of crystal-clear display (phase characteristic). Without this step there will be a half tiled or simply called overglaze decoration.

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