Mangoes come in two varieties: one you peel, cut, dice and then daintily stab the pieces in a glass bowl with a fruit fork and put it in your mouth. The other mango you squeeze and crush and then slurp the juice. Mango eaters are also of two varieties: The folks who prefer the cut and eat kind and the people who choose to love the mess of eating a gooey, sticky, fibrous mango with all the attendant drip, dribble and drool.
Unfortunately, the art of eating mango is dying as more and more people switch to the comfort of bottled juices, mango milk shakes, fruit salads and jams. Eating a mango with a fork or a toothpick is like eating a lunch in South India without de rigueur pickle. It isn’t the done thing.
A mango is one of the connects with childhood for most Indians that is renewed every year. A time when summer vacation meant mangoes in a diet. A mango with breakfast, then with lunch and then when adults have tea and one on the sly when nobody is looking.
With exotic names like Hapus aka Alphonso, Imampasand, Jehangir (ironically, Mughal Emperor Akbar who planted one lakh mango trees doesn’t have a variety named after him), Banginpally, Benishan, Totapuri aka Collector, Malgova and a dozen other varieties, the wash, peel, cut and eat mangoes have their own appeal with the comfort and dainty eating.
Unfortunately, the art of eating mango is dying as more and more people switch to the comfort of bottled juices, mango milk shakes, fruit salads and jams. Eating a mango with a fork or a toothpick is like eating a lunch in South India without de rigueur pickle. It isn’t the done thing.
A mango is one of the connects with childhood for most Indians that is renewed every year. A time when summer vacation meant mangoes in a diet. A mango with breakfast, then with lunch and then when adults have tea and one on the sly when nobody is looking.
With exotic names like Hapus aka Alphonso, Imampasand, Jehangir (ironically, Mughal Emperor Akbar who planted one lakh mango trees doesn’t have a variety named after him), Banginpally, Benishan, Totapuri aka Collector, Malgova and a dozen other varieties, the wash, peel, cut and eat mangoes have their own appeal with the comfort and dainty eating.
It is the myriad juicy varieties with non-royal names like cheruku rasalu, chinna rasalu, pedda rasalu, raspuri, chausa, dussehri that one gets the feel of the mango season.
A mango connoisseur would wash then squeeze the mango in a particular way from below to up, one has to be extra careful with the thin skinned dussehri, and it has to be done in such a way that the sap is drained away, Then you have to carefully remove the crown of the mango so that the juice doesn’t spill over and the bitter sap is removed in its entirety. Then juice should be made to flow into the mouth in a particular way to experience the bliss of mango heaven. Then one thing unites the dainty eaters with the mess lovers: The seed. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Whoever thinks a mango is eaten because it is sweet is wrong. A mango is eaten to revisit childhood and for glimpse of heaven that was once so near.
The pix is of daughter eating Benishan and her father eating a Malgova.
A mango connoisseur would wash then squeeze the mango in a particular way from below to up, one has to be extra careful with the thin skinned dussehri, and it has to be done in such a way that the sap is drained away, Then you have to carefully remove the crown of the mango so that the juice doesn’t spill over and the bitter sap is removed in its entirety. Then juice should be made to flow into the mouth in a particular way to experience the bliss of mango heaven. Then one thing unites the dainty eaters with the mess lovers: The seed. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Whoever thinks a mango is eaten because it is sweet is wrong. A mango is eaten to revisit childhood and for glimpse of heaven that was once so near.
The pix is of daughter eating Benishan and her father eating a Malgova.
