Mangonada
A journey towards a recipe
In May I walked four miles to Felipe’s in Mid City. I craved their mangonada, a mango-heavy drink shot through with sweet-spicy-salty Chamoy and Tajín. The temperature was in the nineties and the heat index even higher, so by the time I arrived, everything I wore was striped with white salty tidal marks. It was worth it; that mangonada made my salivary glands pulsate as does its memory so this month’s recipe column was a sod to write because my mouth watered constantly. It is IMPOSSIBLE to think about mangoes in a sensorily detached manner but I persevered: here’s my homemade version of Felipe’s Froyo Mangonada.
Before I started researching a mango-related food column, I thought my knowledge base was pretty solid. It wasn’t and as usual, I ended up delving into all manner of mango-related stories…
A taster: antique manuals about gardening in India. Probodh Chundra De’s A Treatise On Mango. Regional names for mango stones. A Burmese tale tells of a gardener who gave Buddha the gift of a mango whose stone was entrusted to his servant Ananda to ‘plant in a place which is prepared to receive it’. Arrows soaked in mango blossom oil to be shot into the hearts of gods and humans. Indian farmers uniting mango trees in marriage. The Chinese Mango Cult. Colonialism. Globalism. Localism. The mango….A journey from Assam in India to…everywhere….
Here’s some good reading:
The Great Mango Book by Allen Susser.
The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich
Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream by Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning and Lyn Nguyen.
A Treasure Trove of Goan Mango Dishes by Nilima Kamat.
Mango: A Global History by Constance L. Kirker and Mary Newman. (Out Aug 1st)
‘The flexibility provided by a specific kind of abundance—extra pumpkin, banana blossoms blooming, an excess of food, period, growing in the garden to give away—rather than the idea of abundance we’ve been sold, quite literally, being access to anything at any time to buy is what fuels creativity, excitement, a feeling of safety in the midst of an uncertain future,’
writes in ‘On Abundance’. As someone who had unfettered access to locally grown Mexican mangoes as a child and— not having access to a field-sized orangery or a subtropical climate— cannot cultivate them in the UK where I now live is a bitter cultural and environmental pill to swallow. I have year-round access to mangoes from every mango-producing country in the world. This feels wrong but I love them too much to curb my purchases. Someone needs to write about this.Related: ‘As I look up at the mango trees drawing patterns in the sky above us, I wonder: will an Alphonso mango from Malawi speak the same tastes to my tongue or will it communicate in an entirely new language?’ asks Zuri Camille de Souza.
Under The Mango Tree is a useful resource if you keep in mind that it also operates as a sales and marketing tool for the Crespo Organic Mango brand. I’m keen to see how her new section, ‘3 Minute Mango Expertise’, featuring video interviews with experts pans out.
The mango in art. I adore this exquisite mango-shaped flask. (Maybe give it back though?)
‘India arguably has only two seasons: monsoon season and mango season. Monsoon season replenishes India’s soil. Mango season, more than a few literary types have suggested, helps replenish India’s soul,’’ writes Jim Yardley in the NYT (£). ‘Mango jingoism’ is a great coinage.
Having moved beyond postcolonialism and a welter of sari-and-mango novels, Indian literature has struck out into darker, messier terrain, Rana Dasgupta writes. A rebuttal: ‘But What If I Want to Write About Mangoes?’ asks Pragya Agarwal. And here’s Jaya Saxena in Just Another Member of the Diaspora, Writing About Mangoes. ‘Kesar mango season arrived like the greatest FOMO,’ is a great line.
talks mangoes in a deliciously anthologised post packed with recipes, tips, history, and beautiful writing.< Screams in every language > Some weevils live inside mango pits BUT the seed embryo inside the hard pit has a rich nutty flavour when roasted in clarified butter with spices and herbs.
O mango-twig I give to Love
As arrow for his bow,
Most sovereign of his arrows five,
Strike maiden-targets low.
(Kalidasa: Shakuntala)
If you ever visit Chicago, you must get a mangonada here - the place where they were born. Or so they say. I would also walk 4 miles for one. I don't think there's anything finer on a hot day.
Guess I’m going to have to get to New Orleans…!