One semester I asked students to freeze their banana peels. This seemed like a good plan at the time. On the appointed day we collected everyone's blackened banana peels and fed them into our new 2-pound David Reina beater. Slimy, sticky banana glue stuck to every surface. The pulp was a mess and never touched our precious moulds and deckles. It took forever to scrape and sand banana crud from every part of the beater that day. We set aside our hopes for banana peels as the next great papermaking fiber. That was four years ago. Two years ago we decided to take another look at bananas—this time the plants were growing in my yard. Ordinarily, we would cut down the dead plants and haul the stalks to the curb. What better way to use this readily available garden waste than to make paper from it? It has become one of the students' favorite fiber sources. Banana plants are now at a premium every fall. We go as far as Glenn House's territory, Gordo, Alabama, in our annual search for banana plants. A banana tree in August. All photos by and courtesy of the author. Making Paper from the Banana Plant: An Alabama Approach steve miller 34 - hand papermaking After a few attempts, we now follow the process that I outline below. There are many ways to make this paper but this is the method that seems good and true. After a first frost saw the stalks down and cut off the tops. The leaves look so insubstantial that we work only with the stalks. Strip off ugly or damaged outer layers to end up with pieces around six feet long. We store them in our Lost Arch Papermill on sticks, and put a fan nearby to keep air moving around them. Anytime from immediately after harvesting to a month or two later, strip off the darkened outer layer of the stalks and saw them into 1- to 2-inch cross sections. These pieces go into a 5-gallon stainless steel cooking pot until it is half full. Then fill the pot with water to within 2 inches of the top. Now you know how much water to use in the cook. Pull the banana pieces out of the pot and start heating the water to a boil on a propane burner. While the pot is heating up, put the banana pieces into another container filled with hot water. We do this to start warming the pieces before we put them in the boiling water, so the cook takes less time. When the pot begins to boil add 3 ounces of soda ash, for a light-handed cook, and step away. Do not inhale the fumes. All of this should be done outdoors. I tried an experimental cook at home on the stove and was ordered never, ever to do that again. Also, if you find yourself without soda ash we have successfully cooked using one 8-ounce box of baking soda. After the cooking agent dissolves and the water comes to a boil, put the banana pieces back into the pot. When the pot comes to a slow boil, cover it with a lid and cook the fiber for about 45 minutes. Every 15 minutes tend the fiber by gently mixing the pieces for an even cook. The final fiber will appear somewhat transparent and feel fairly soft. Rinse the cooked fiber in a stainless-steel colander. Use a gentle spray to remove the soda ash and other noncellulosic material. Two such cooks provide enough fiber for one load in a 2-pound Reina beater. Add water to half the depth of the beater, turn the machine on with the beater roll well above the bedplate (we set the counter to "30"), and within a few minutes lower the roll to "10" then "5" then as low as you can go while listening to make sure it is "working." Howard Clark once said to me that his beater was not really working until it was really loud. We do not go quite that far. The alarming thing about a proper beat is that the banana pulp goes to soup. The first time this happened I did not believe we would be able to get a sheet from the liquid goop. But we are able to form beautiful, thin, crackly, though short-fibered sheets. We do not dilute the pulp with water. The pulp goes straight from the beater into the empty vat. My students are able to make large 18 x 24-inch sheets but we tend to use smaller moulds for a higher success rate. Mixing banana pulp with other fibers produces unusual sheets, and our graduate student Sarah McDermott is successfully printing letterpress and serigraphy on her banana papers. At Alabama we love working with banana stalk fiber. One possible drawback is that the fibers are fairly short, so repeated folding might be a problem. Mixing banana with other pulp may be the best use of this unique and beautiful fiber. Alabama Banana Banana paper made from the stalk of Musa basjoo. Sample sheets were made by students of the University of Alabama MFA in the Book Arts Program: Mukti Cerio, Ellison Graham, Robert Lomascolo, Allison Milham, Mary McManus, Shea McManus, Stephanie Jacobs, Krysten Nevarez, Sonja Greentree Rossow, and Elizabeth Wuestefeld.
