Mango Season!
Mango season has arrived in my village! Compared to the "fruit desert" I was living in from December through February, I am now in a mango oasis. The mangoes began to ripen in my village around mid-March. Now that April is in full swing, there are more than enough to go around in my family because we have a couple big trees.
Village mangoes are of course different from the imported ones that are available in the US. Mangoes here are smaller, stringier, and have much more taste. In terms of flavor, Indian mangoes for me still take the prize as the most delicious of the mangoes, but Senegalese mangoes are much closer to the Indian mangoes than they are to US mangoes. I have to floss every time I eat a mango because of the stringiness--it is inevitable that bits will get stuck between my teeth. I am curious what my family members do to remedy this problem, as I never see them with floss. People in my village often clean their teeth with sticks or leaves, but I have not found these to be effective tools to get the mango strings out from between my teeth. Maybe they just have more practice at it than I do.
Mango eating methods vary from person to person in the village. Older adults usually peel mangoes with a knife and cut slices. Kids and young people have two other ways they eat mangoes. The first is to squeeze and squish a ripe mango so that the inside turns into juice. You then bite a small hole in the skin and squeeze out the mango juice you have made. When the juice is gone, you can nibble on the remaining mango stuck to the pit to your heart's content. The second method that younger people use to eat mangoes is to eat them like an apple, skin and all. I dabbled in the squeezing method for a while before deciding that the apple method is much better. In addition to getting more fiber and nutrients from eating the peel, I found it to be easier to control how dirty my hands and face get while eating. (Speaking of fiber, by stomach has been adjusting during the last couple weeks to my much higher fiber intake due to the ripening of the mangoes).
I have stopped cooking fonio for breakfast every morning at my site. Now I eat 4-6 mangoes (again, these are smaller than those you find in the US) and have a few spoonfuls of peanut butter every morning. No dishes to wash, nutritious, and delicious. What more could I ask for in a breakfast? I often will eat some mangoes later in the day as well. The most I have consumed in one day is 10, but I think I can beat that given a little more time in my village.
One of my younger brothers, Keeba, likes to cut up unripe mangoes (5/10 on a ripeness scale) and mix them with Jimbo, the ubiquitous bullion-like spice that women add to every meal here. He then finds a ripe mango (10/10), squishes it, and squeezes the juice into the bowl of diced mangoes. We then eat this delicious salty delicious mixture with our hands, licking our fingers to get all the mango juice and Jimbo off of them. Another of my younger brothers, Balla, one time cut up an unripe mango (5/10) and added onion, salt, and hot pepper to make "mango salsa" for an afternoon snack. I put "mango salsa" in quotes because that is the name I would ascribe to this mixture in the states but not his name for the snack. We also ate this straight from the bowl. It could have used a little more hot pepper (and some tortilla chips).
I hope the mangoes in my village continue to ripen for a long, long time.
Village mangoes are of course different from the imported ones that are available in the US. Mangoes here are smaller, stringier, and have much more taste. In terms of flavor, Indian mangoes for me still take the prize as the most delicious of the mangoes, but Senegalese mangoes are much closer to the Indian mangoes than they are to US mangoes. I have to floss every time I eat a mango because of the stringiness--it is inevitable that bits will get stuck between my teeth. I am curious what my family members do to remedy this problem, as I never see them with floss. People in my village often clean their teeth with sticks or leaves, but I have not found these to be effective tools to get the mango strings out from between my teeth. Maybe they just have more practice at it than I do.
Mango eating methods vary from person to person in the village. Older adults usually peel mangoes with a knife and cut slices. Kids and young people have two other ways they eat mangoes. The first is to squeeze and squish a ripe mango so that the inside turns into juice. You then bite a small hole in the skin and squeeze out the mango juice you have made. When the juice is gone, you can nibble on the remaining mango stuck to the pit to your heart's content. The second method that younger people use to eat mangoes is to eat them like an apple, skin and all. I dabbled in the squeezing method for a while before deciding that the apple method is much better. In addition to getting more fiber and nutrients from eating the peel, I found it to be easier to control how dirty my hands and face get while eating. (Speaking of fiber, by stomach has been adjusting during the last couple weeks to my much higher fiber intake due to the ripening of the mangoes).
I have stopped cooking fonio for breakfast every morning at my site. Now I eat 4-6 mangoes (again, these are smaller than those you find in the US) and have a few spoonfuls of peanut butter every morning. No dishes to wash, nutritious, and delicious. What more could I ask for in a breakfast? I often will eat some mangoes later in the day as well. The most I have consumed in one day is 10, but I think I can beat that given a little more time in my village.
One of my younger brothers, Keeba, likes to cut up unripe mangoes (5/10 on a ripeness scale) and mix them with Jimbo, the ubiquitous bullion-like spice that women add to every meal here. He then finds a ripe mango (10/10), squishes it, and squeezes the juice into the bowl of diced mangoes. We then eat this delicious salty delicious mixture with our hands, licking our fingers to get all the mango juice and Jimbo off of them. Another of my younger brothers, Balla, one time cut up an unripe mango (5/10) and added onion, salt, and hot pepper to make "mango salsa" for an afternoon snack. I put "mango salsa" in quotes because that is the name I would ascribe to this mixture in the states but not his name for the snack. We also ate this straight from the bowl. It could have used a little more hot pepper (and some tortilla chips).
I hope the mangoes in my village continue to ripen for a long, long time.
Comments
Post a Comment