Plantains from Spain are far from plain

I do much of my grocery shopping at the Towers Mall Kroger's, thanks largely to the new gas station at the bottom of the hill and the fact that I get a dime off gas for every $100 I spend on groceries (or gift cards!).

I may not be proud of basing my entire shopping habits on the consumption of oil, especially since my commute is a whopping 15 minutes at worst. But that Kroger's does have other qualities, and one of those is the selection of weird foods I've never tasted.

Enter the Plantain. Now, I know Plantains aren't from Spain, but none of the other countries rhymed, and I needed a snazzy title. The plantain is a really big banana, though obviously not a regular banana like you had in your grade school lunchbox because the hide is thicker.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who's unfamiliar with how you're supposed to eat these things, cause the sticker clearly stated specific instructions on how to tell when it's ripe (it's mostly black) and how to prepare it, which is by frying it up after chopping into 3/4 inch slices.

So last night, that's just what I did, having no idea if I was supposed to spray the pan with Canola or maybe throw in some olive oil. I opted for the latter when they started to stick, and because it made a far more gratifying sizzle that made me feel like I was doing something.

The wife was out with a friend, so beyond the sticker's instruction, I was pretty much winging it. I figured that - since it was fried - it must not be too sweet, so I slapped some Red Hot on it, and some of that other hot sauce with the rooster on it like you see in Indian food restaurants.

The end result you can see for yourself, but the taste: delicious. I got off kinda lucky there, I think; they probably tasted good to begin with, and there was only so much I could screw up. But I dipped them in a little ranch and they tasted a little like chipped sweet potato.

The morale of the story? Sure, Roanoke's not as big or as cosmopolitan as some larger cities where plantains surely play second fiddle to really creepy foods, but it's nice to know that if I want to play around with my dinner, exotic food is only minutes away.