Cooking a banana flower in the jungle

Here is a step-by-step procedure how to cook a banana flower stew in the jungle.

The first step is to spot a banana tree with a suitably ripe flower. In order to reach the flower, the banana tree must be chopped down:

I was horrified to witness the sacrifice of an entire tree for a single flower. However, a banana is technically not a tree but a herbaceous plant that dies after bearing fruit. So the plant would have died anyway after it produced bananas and I guess it is acceptable to kill a few plants for their flowers before the bananas ripen. The jungle is overgrown with banana plants so I hope we didn't cause too much environmental damage by taking a few banana flowers.

The banana flower looks heavy! It is hauled out of the jungle from where the banana plant was felled:

The outer layers of the banana flower are peeled off:

The jungle is also abundant with bamboo which can be used to make many useful tools. The thinner bamboo stems can be made into walking sticks, the thicker ones into cooking utensils and the thickest to make benches and tables:

Here are the finished bamboo cooking vessels:

A fire was started using dead wood that can be found all over the jungle:

This is how the cooking vessels are placed over the fire. They are first soaked in water and water is added for cooking the stew:

The banana flowers get a final cleaning in the stream and additional outer layers are removed:

Pieces of the banana flower are added into the simmering stew:

Additional ingredients go into the stew including salt, two different types of green leaves (don't ask what they were, I didn't recognize either), slices of pre-cooked meat, mushrooms (also abundant in the jungle), and brown sugar:

The stew is stirred occasionally and the vessels adjusted over the fire so that it doesn't boil over. Finally, after about a half hour, the stew is done. It is served from another bamboo stem that has been cut in half lengthwise to create a trench:

Banana leaves are used as the tablecloth. And little origami boats made from banana leaves serve as spoons:

Side dishes are green beans and mounds of sticky rice that were left over from previous night's dinner.