When is a Banana ready to be eaten?

There are basically four stages of banana-ripeness:

 - Green and hard as a rock -

 - Yellow and sorta soft -

 - Yellow with spots and almost mushy -

 - Black and shriveled -

I absolutely cannot eat green bananas but I know some people who love to cook with them at that stage.  Once they are fully yellow I can barely stomach them without feeling like I'm eating a potato or taro root.  So in a pinch I'll down a yellow banana.  Black and shriveled are just perfect for making banana-bread (at least that's when my wife usually makes the bread and hers is delicious so I trust her method of proofing the bananas).

By a long shot, my favorite banana-ripeness level is the third category I mentioned above: Yellow, with spots and almost mushy.  At this stage the banana almost tastes like it is a sort of creme-filling and if they are cold or mashed up some I think they provide much better flavor on cereal or ice cream, etc.

I love banana-flavored things.  It remains to this day the single best Slurpee flavor EVER!  Bananas and nuts go great together in everything from cereal to muffins to pancakes to bread, not to mention desserts like pies and ice cream (Chunky Monkey by Ben and Jerry's is superb!)

But I am curious if there are more like me out there, because in my current family and my family-of-origin I seem to be the only one who prefers this kind of flavor and especially this kind of almost mushy banana.

So when do you eat them?  Are you a "greenie" or a "pure yellow" fan?  Just wonderin' ...

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