I often each lunch at LCC in the Math/Science faculty lounge. One of my colleagues often has a banana with his lunch, and always opens them from what I call the "bottom", meaning the flower side, not the stem side.
This is just as easy to do (if not easier once you have a little practice), and if you squish the banana at all then all you squish is the end you don't eat anyway.
Last Shabbat I was telling this story to another friend, who replied that he knew this trick already. He has a friend from the Philippines who routinely tells American tourists, "Monkeys know how to open bananas, why don't you?"
