Plantain: Often called coloquially, platano macho ( masculine banana for its shape ), this large green banana with West Coast African origins brought to the Caribbean and South America by slave traders, behaves like a starch and thus is a vegetable, not a fruit. It is fried like French Fries, and called Tostones throughout Miami and the Caribbean, and can be simmered in stews too, in the Caribbean Islands of Cuba,The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. One shall also find that the plantain can be made into " chips " ( like a potato chip ).