Red bananas

Banana "ketchup" is a uniquely Filipino product. No, it doesn't have tomatoes; it really is made from bananas, with vinegar, sugar and spices. Think of it as a sweet and spicy banana sauce, similar in taste to Thai sweet chili sauce. Banana ketchup was invented during World War II when there was a shortage of tomatoes (and many other things besides), and its formulation is credited to Maria Ylagan Orosa (1892–1945), a food technologist, nationalist and war heroine. If you've ever mashed bananas, you know that it is light brown in color; banana ketchup is red because of food coloring—to make it more acceptable as a ketchup replacement to Filipinos and Americans in the country during the WWII era. But almost three-quarters of a century after the war, I wish Jufran and other makers of banana ketchup would drop the red food coloring and stop calling it ketchup. It's a flavorful and appetizing condiment which can—and should—be elevated to something more than "fake ketchup."