Sofia Larrinua-Craxton

alphonso mango in june

Yes it is early June and it is a sunny day, so it feels that the time is ripe to talk about mangoes.  These juicy and yellow ovals are native to India and travelled to other parts of the world, mainly South East Asia and the Philippines, from where they must have embarked in direction to Acapulco or somewhere in the pacific coast of the Americas.

When you talk about mangoes to people who have lived or live in tropical zones, it is a little like talking about someone you love and who you are going to meet again after a while.  Just to mention the word brings a smile to our faces and a sparkle to our eyes. In the same way as with humans, people have their personal favourites and someone from Pakistan, for instance, would tell you the best in the world are Pakistani Honey Mangoes; any Indian person will tell you that the king of mango is called Alphonso and so on.  Mexicans vouch for Filipino Mangoes or ‘Mangos de Manila’.  Like all things food, preferences are related to what is familiar to us and I clearly remember my first addiction when aged 4 or 5 and short enough to be unable to see the top of the kitchen counter I binged on 1.5 Kg of ripe mangoes!  Short of falling ill, this event sealed my fate and started a long lasting relationship with this king of fruits.

Mangoes can be eaten ripe and unripe but then the manner in which they are consumed is completely different.  An unripe mango is deliciously acidic and can be part of a salad.  In Mexico we sprinkle salt and chilli powder and eat it as a lolly pop.  Many cultures cook with it and there are many curries, salads and other interesting dishes that use green mangoes.

To eat a ripe mango is a unique experience which calls for a time of solitude in which one prepares for the messy ritual that follows.  A decent well brought up person would cut a mango around the stone in two halves, peel and cut into bite sized pieces from the fruit and eat with a fork.  This is obviously a nice thing to do, but with a mango one has to be wild, best is to peel the fruit using a knife or bare hands, then just like with artichokes, suck any pieces of pulp that adhere to the skin; once finished with the skin, discard.  Wear yellow or better still, roll up your sleeves and attack the fleshy pulp, bite off as you please enjoy each and every mouthful and go all the way to the core.  Once finished wash your face and arms and reflect on the experience.

Another way of eating a mango is simply by cutting a slit on the top of the mango and suck up all the pulp, this is similar to drinking up a naturally made smoothie.

This time of year calls for the best sweet fleshy mangoes, buy them -this is best done at an ethnic shop, Indian and Pakistani ones sell them by the box.  Leave them to ripen in a fruit bowl, the smell will tell you when they are ready, sometimes they exude a trickle of honey and off you go.

In the same way as you would do to a beloved person who you have not seen in a while, don’t just stare at them and shake hands, instead embrace them, kiss them and tell them you much you love them and missed them, and yes enjoy their short stay 100%

Papaya was cultivated in the area known as Mexico since immemorial time and like all things nice, it travelled to other tropical parts of the world thus becoming an essential fruit and an ingredient in other cultures. It has been a subject for films -just have a glimpse to these evocative scenes; it has also been a model for many paintings and sculptures, but most importantly it has been a good friend in many kitchens and in many stomachs, since papaya contains an enzyme called papain which is good for digestion.

To make the most of a papaya, you need to make sure it is fully ripe; this means that the fruit should be soft with a faint fruity smell and it needs to be orange-red.  To achieve this it is best to buy and leave in a fruit bowl for a few days until you become almost unbearable suspicious of the fruit actally being past its best, at this point it will be deliciously sweet and soft.

A good way to prepare papaya is by cutting a wedge of what you are going to consume and using teaspoon, scoop out the seeds; then using a potato peeler, peel off the skin, cut in bite sized chunks and enjoy with a squirt of lime.   Some people like mixing it with other fruits like mango and mix with water or milk to make an ‘agua fresca’ or a ‘licuado’.  Green papayas can be eaten cooked in curries.  Papayas make good salad ingredients, they mix well with salt, pepper and lime and in my next post I will give you a recipe for a papaya salad with papaya seed dressing, so don’t throw away those seeds yet!

Detail of 'slit fruit' by Nicholas Moore 1992