Growing up in India, you know that there are 2 seasons as a child; mango season and all the rest. Why does a tropical fruit whose trees give bountiful harvests for longer than most other trees attract such fervor, attention, and intensity? It tastes amazing. To an Indian, like to an eskimo, there are several different species among the mango family; Alphonso & Kesari are the ones I know. My grandfather would be able to list off more.

But to me and most others you have mangoes that are meant to be juiced and you have mangoes that are supposed to be sliced & eaten by putting the fruit side of it in your mouth, biting into the mango juicily, with your hand going down, extracting all of the fruit from the skin and then relishing the taste.

So when we moved from Bombay to NYC in 1991, the one true aspect that was missing from our lives was the taste of any Indian mango. The New York Times did a report on the excitement and taste of the Indian mango last year. They just barely touched on the passion of it. To those of you who are satisfied merely with the Mexican & South American counterparts; you’ve tasted NOTHING yet. And it maybe hard to believe that the same fruit, same shape, nearly same size could have such a drastic difference in taste from country to country.

Now the JFK shipment of mangoes last week means a huge step forward. I have to say it and I hate to do so, thank George W. Bush. He lifted the bans that were previously put on the Indian mangoes. The joy the new mangoes will bring is practically immeasurable. It is the only personal experience I have that directly contradicts the economic theory of “law of diminishing returns.” I could eat mangoes all day and all night, I could wake up and have mango juice, have my roti (flatbread) with mango rass (still mango juice but a bit enriched and thicker than the soft drink type), eat a mango on its side, have raw mango pickles, and finally top it off with halwa and mango ice cream.

You may think I’m crazy, but you have yet to experiencce the taste that causes such a passionate & genuine excitement.

[photo credit: organicharvest.com]

Related posts:

1. Chai, Toys & Music
2. Sugarcane Juice
3. Fun With Absolutely Unauthentic Indian Food
4. Let’s get Personal
5. Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst