To finally keep my promise:
The Cumbana
is a vegetable which grows in large fields on the floor of streaming waters. The fruits are rich and fleshy inside [ imagine a cucumber ], covered by several layers of strong leaves [ imagine closed corn. ]. Although predjudiced as "poor people food", you shall not underestimate their healthy ingredients.
In warm seasons, almost daily one of the fruits per plant on the ground ripens and starts to rise during the early hours of the day, up to the surface of the river, connected to the main plant on the floor with a long stem. It floats on the surface during noon, and finally opens the fruit covering leaves.
Cumbanas should be harvested when they are just about to open, but not yet fully revealed. Open cumbanas macerate soon, and before the evening they will drift away as a kind of thick foam on the surface. Just in time harvested cumbanas can be kept for almost a week when keeping them chilled and only slightly humid.
Then they can be used as vegetables - for example, they are often sliced lengthwise, and the soft kernels get substituted by minced meat or spicy fruits [ like filled zucchini ]. Also they are sometimes sliced crosswise and baked under a cover of a few days old, slightly sour milk [ gratinated ].
A different way of use is harvesting them when they are still closed and about to rise to the surface. Then especially children enjoy to dive into the river, cut the stems, and hang them into the sun over a clothesline. Well dried they are a sweet fruity snack [ imagine slightly dried bananas. ].
