{"id":8402,"date":"2026-10-19T23:31:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T14:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/?post_type=sweetlore&p=8402"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:50:16","slug":"bananas-foster","status":"publish","type":"sweetlore","link":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/en\/sweetlore\/bananas-foster\/","title":{"rendered":"Bananas Foster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This dessert spoons hot bananas and a brown sauce over cold vanilla ice cream. Bananas Foster, finished with rum flames beside the table, is a New Orleans dish that Brennan\u2019s says it created in 1951. Foster was not a cook; it is the name of a friend of the restaurant\u2019s owner. The dish grew out of a family\u2019s idea and a style of service finished in the dining room, in a city whose trade included its role as a port for imported bananas.<\/p>\n

Adding banana liqueur and then rum<\/h2>\n

Butter, brown sugar and cinnamon are heated in a pan, and once the butter melts, banana liqueur is added. Sliced bananas go into this sauce of combined sugar and fat and are cooked briefly until the fruit softens. In Brennan\u2019s recipe (ingredient formulation and method), this cooking takes about 1 to 2 minutes. In this step, the bananas keep their shape while their surface is coated in the sweet liquid.<\/p>\n

Aged rum is then added and flamb\u00e9ed. The banana liqueur added first gives a fruity aroma, and the dish is finished by igniting the alcohol vapor of the rum added afterward.<\/p>\n

\n\"Bananas\n
Bananas with vanilla ice cream served in a separate small dish (June 1, 2018; United States, exact location unknown). In some presentations of the same dish, the ice cream is served separately. Photo: sousvideguy.com<\/a> \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY 2.0<\/a>. Full-size image obtained. No content alterations or cropping on our part.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Ice cream melting under the hot sauce<\/h2>\n

When the bananas and sauce are poured over vanilla ice cream, the heat starts to melt the surface of the ice cream. The melted ice cream mixes into the brown sauce, and the temperature and thickness change as you eat. The soft bananas are scooped up together with the warm sauce and the cold ice cream.<\/p>\n

In restaurants it is prepared beside the table, and guests also enjoy watching the butter melt, the sauce bubble and the flames rise. The spectacle of the flamb\u00e9 goes hand in hand with serving the dessert immediately, while it is still hot.<\/p>\n

\"Bananas<\/p>\n

Bananas Foster served in New Orleans, with bananas and ice cream in a dish. Photo: rulenumberone2, 2013-11-13, New Orleans, United States. Original image<\/a> \/ CC BY 2.0<\/a>. Reduced-size version from the hosting source, with no further processing.<\/p>\n

\n\"Bananas\n
Bananas Foster served at Arnaud\u2019s in New Orleans (June 23, 2018). A dish of bananas and sauce sits on the table. Photo: Terry Ballard \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY 2.0<\/a>. Reduced-size version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping on our part.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

An origin story about surplus bananas and a mother\u2019s breakfast<\/h2>\n

As Brennan\u2019s tells it, the dessert began with a surplus of bananas at the produce company run by Owen Brennan\u2019s younger brother John. Owen then asked his younger sister Ella and chef Paul Blang\u00e9 to make a dessert with the fruit. The city\u2019s role as a port for bananas imported from Central and South America combined with a more personal circumstance: the inventory of the family\u2019s company.<\/p>\n

According to the origin story told by a tourism organization, Ella remembered her mother browning bananas for breakfast and turned that into a tableside dish made with rum. Richard Foster, the special guest that night, was Owen\u2019s friend, and the two were both involved with the city\u2019s crime commission. The restaurant also records that the dish was named after him. This account of how the dish was created has been passed down through later recollections by the restaurant and the family.<\/p>\n

Owen\u2019s son Ted later also said that a travel magazine asked for the recipe for an article about the restaurant\u2019s breakfast, and that the chef made it again and again to develop it. In his recollection, the menu at the time called it \u201cBanana \u00e0 la Foster.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the dish was created, the restaurant was \u201cOwen Brennan\u2019s Vieux Carr\u00e9\u201d on Bourbon Street. The restaurant has since moved to its current location on Royal Street, and the signature dish has been carried on there. The restaurant says that making it the finale of \u201cBreakfast at Brennan\u2019s\u201d was the turning point when its popularity really took off, and after its creation the dish continued to spread through the breakfast service.<\/p>\n

\n\"Bananas\n
Bananas Foster at Cafe Minh in New Orleans (September 25, 2021). In this presentation, browned bananas are arranged side by side. Photo: Bart Everson \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY 2.0<\/a>. Reduced-size version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping on our part.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Tableside cart service and a cr\u00eape version<\/h2>\n

At Brennan\u2019s, the dish is still finished today on a rolling cart brought up beside the table. It is one of several tableside preparations, along with Steak Diane, Cr\u00eapes Fitzgerald and others, and the moment when the flames rise is built into the service.<\/p>\n

The presentation varies even at the same restaurant. In the breakfast version that chef Slade Rushing introduced in Food & Wine in 2014, the bananas are placed on cr\u00eapes, baked and served with cream. Instead of being finished by igniting rum at the table, this version is baked with the cr\u00eapes before it is served.<\/p>\n

Glossary<\/h2>\n

Ted Brennan<\/strong>: Owen Brennan\u2019s son. He later spoke about the restaurant\u2019s signature dishes and its breakfast.<\/p>

Owen Brennan<\/strong>: The founder of Brennan\u2019s. He asked the chef to develop a banana dish.<\/p>

John Brennan<\/strong>: Owen\u2019s younger brother. He ran a produce company and appears in the story of how the dessert was created.<\/p>

Paul Blang\u00e9<\/strong>: The chef who was involved in developing Bananas Foster.<\/p>

Ella Brennan<\/strong>: Owen\u2019s younger sister, a restaurateur who took part in developing the dish.<\/p>

Richard Foster<\/strong>: Owen\u2019s friend, after whom the dessert was named. Chairman of the New Orleans crime commission.<\/p>

Slade Rushing<\/strong>: As chef at Brennan\u2019s, he introduced the cr\u00eape version in 2014.<\/p>

Breakfast at Brennan\u2019s<\/strong>: The breakfast service that Brennan\u2019s promoted. The restaurant explains that making Bananas Foster the signature finale of this service was the turning point in the dessert\u2019s spread.<\/p>

Flamb\u00e9<\/strong>: A finishing technique in which the alcohol vapor of liquor added to a dish is ignited.<\/p>

Brown sugar<\/strong>: Brown-colored sugar that contains molasses. It gives the sauce its color and flavor.<\/p>

Banana liqueur<\/strong>: A sweet liquor flavored with banana. In this dessert, it is added to the sauce separately from the rum.<\/p>

References<\/h2>\n

  1. \u2022 PBS, \u201cNew Orleans Restaurants with a Past,\u201d program transcript<\/a> \u2014 Ted Brennan\u2019s recollections: the magazine\u2019s request, the chef\u2019s trial versions, the early name. The video itself was not watched, and the original magazine issue from that time has not been checked.<\/p><\/li>

  2. \u2022 Brennan\u2019s, \u201cTraditions\u201d<\/a> \u2014 \u00a7Bananas Foster \/ \u00a7Tableside Dining \/ \u00a7History. The bananas from younger brother John\u2019s produce company, Ella and the chef, the naming after Foster, the spread through breakfast, the current tableside service. This is the restaurant\u2019s own later account, not an original record from the day the dish was created.\n\u2022 Brennan\u2019s, \u201cBananas Foster\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Ingredients, the order of the two liquors, the brief cooking of the bananas, serving over ice cream. The restaurant\u2019s current recipe.\n\u2022 New Orleans & Company \/ Mary Beth Romig, \u201cThe Legend of Bananas Foster\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A later account of the origin: the memory of the mother\u2019s breakfast, the special guest Foster, and Ella, Blang\u00e9 and the dining room server. Not a primary record from the day the dish was created.\n\u2022 Food & Wine, December 2014 issue, as posted by Brennan\u2019s<\/a> \u2014 \u201cCaramelized Bananas Foster Cr\u00eapes with Cream.\u201d The cr\u00eape version by the restaurant\u2019s chef Slade Rushing. The article is a reposted PDF; the original printed pages have not been seen.<\/p><\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Bananas Foster is a warm banana dessert that originated in New Orleans in the United States. Butter, brown sugar and cinnamon are heated, combined with bananas and liquor, and poured over vanilla ice cream to serve. It is also known for the showmanship of finishing the rum with flames, and on the plate the hot amber sauce and the cold white ice cream melt into each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7386,"menu_order":173,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_parade_sweetlore_meta":{"en":"Bananas Foster","subtitle":"Warm rum sauce over bananas and ice cream","topics":"Butter and sugar turned into a sauce\uff0fA dish finished between fire and ice\uff0fBorn from the bananas of a port city","country":"New Orleans, United States","show_toc":true,"ingredients":["fruit","spice","cream","butter"],"texture":[],"occasion":[],"method":["cooked"],"season":[]},"footnotes":""},"sweetlore_category":[164],"class_list":["post-8402","sweetlore","type-sweetlore","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"sweetlore_related_products":null,"sweetlore_related_faqs":null,"sweetlore_related_voices":null,"sweetlore_related_mode":"auto","sweetlore_related_articles":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t