Mangoes Mangoes

Mango Mania
True, all of get these cravings for the heavenly tasting mangoes (be it alphonso if you belonged to Mumbai, be it Noogiveedu or Banganipalli if you belonged to Andhra, or someother 'brand' if you belonged elsewhere), every once in a while, especially when you live out of the country now.
So, this article titled "Mango Mania in India" (What a rhyme too, but needs free registration), it readily caught my attention. It immediately brought fond memories of eating ripe mangoes during summer vacation when we visited our grandparents and all that endless fun. I also remember how all of us cousins locked ourselves up in the dark room (which was where the unriped mangoes were stacked inside the dry grass) to be right there to eat when the mangoes would 'come of age' (ok, no corny thoughts).

To break all this innocence, the said article got some fiesty passages, which makes me wonder if the author is really talking about mangoes indeed.

Inside knowledge always helps, so this reporter called upon Deepanjana Pal, a wine critic in Mumbai who is just as enthusiastic about mangoes. The most important lesson: How to eat a mango, presented in a three-part mime. She first holds out a cupped hand, in which sits the imaginary glistening orange oval of a whole peeled mango; she then deftly flicks her hand at the wrist to propel the phantom mango against her mouth, which gets busy sucking the flesh down to the seed; finally, outrageously, she deploys the full length of her tongue to lick her arm, elbow to wrist, to recapture an inevitable trickle of invisible mango juice.

"That," she says after a long moment's rapture with a fruit that's not even there, "is the best bit." She goes on to speculate that there is something alchemical in the mingling of sweetest mango juice with a salty sheen of sweat.

(Later, a local driver reacted with horror to the mime. "So you don't eat them like that?" I ask. "Well yes, at home, of course," he says. "But not in the streets! People will think that's where you live.")

Happy summer! Well, there gotta be something good associated with excessive heat, right?
cheers
-P