If you are a certain age, you probably remember the scene from Raiders of the Lost Art (1981) when Harrison Ford's character says "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" I was reminded of that scene when I watched a recent episode of Chopped, where one of the contestants discovers that a particular fruit was in the mystery ingredient hamper. "Why did it have to be bananas?" she mutters to herself. Bananas seem to be a 'love it or hate it' fruit, and it is fair to say that banana flavor is assertive, dominating almost any recipe in which it appears. But if you love bananas, you should head over to The Kitchn, which is highlighting its 19 best banana dessert recipes.

Brennan's bananas Foster from Saveur Magazine

As an aside, I read somewhere that marketing types conducted surveys and found that specific numbers in a post's title resulted in more clicks. If that isn't true, most recipes sites must believe it is, because you cannot scroll for more than ten seconds on Twitter before finding the "23 best ways" to use an ingredient or something akin to that. But I digress.

I count myself in the "goes bananas over bananas" camp. One of my favorite treats as a child was a chocolate-dipped frozen banana, I ate copious amounts of peanut butter and banana sandwiches in college, and I will never pass up banana pudding on a restaurant menu when I'm traveling in the US South. One of my favorite gifs is the Lucille Bluth "how much can a banana cost?" clip from Arrested Development. I buy bananas weekly, and if I do not eat them all by the end of the week, I pop them into the freezer to make smoothies, banana cake, or banana bread (learn about the Americas Test Kitchen's scientific way to cram more banana flavor into banana bread).

If I had to choose my favorite banana recipe it would be a toss up between Banana-caramel coconut cream pie with dark rum and Cordon rose banana cake. Bananas Foster (like the one pictured above) is great, too. Are you aboard the banana lovers' express or do you run the other direction when someone starts peeling the fruit? What's your favorite banana recipe?