If you could eat sunshine it would taste like a mango.

As a kid I don’t think I liked mangoes all that much. They are slimy and unfamiliar and kind of hard to eat (I will qualify this last point later).  Eventually I came to realize how delicious they are, although as a rare treat, a produce aisle impulse buy, not as something that made it on to my shopping list very often. I probably eat more mangoes per day in Senegal than I eat in an average year in America. Which leads me to wonder…

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what do three(+) mangoes a day get you? Something good I bet.

1.     Duh. Fresh fruit. Vitamin C.

2.     Digestive antidote to loads and loads of white rice

3.     An incentive to floss regularly

4.     Pure simple joy

Mangoes are a surprising fruit… so many possible favors! The other day I ate one that was so soft it seemed like it should have been bad, too bruised and battered from its fall off the tree to be worth much. I cut into it anyway. It was as good if not better than any mango I have ever eaten. So fragrant and golden and sweet. Like eating late afternoon sunshine. The accumulation of all the day’s warmth and goodness, melting in my mouth. What a wonderful food!

Most mangoes you buy in America are roughly the same size. Here I’ve eaten ones the size of kiwis and some the size of cantaloupes. The first type to ripen are the small yellow ones that tend to be softer and sweeter. My host family will demolish a bucket of these for breakfast every morning. Then there are the much larger ones that come in various shades of green to yellow to orange (and sometimes red and purple!) and resemble what you’d usually buy in America. Most people seem to consider these the superior variety, although I think all mangoes have their virtues. A third variety is by far my personal favorite though. Outwardly they look like the other large grafted variety, but on the inside they are heaven in fruit form (see previous paragraph). Both the large grafted varieties in their unripe state lend themselves well to a tasty snack that Mandinkas appropriately call “pounded mangoes”. The fruit is cut up and pounded with salt, pepper and sometimes red onion and other spices and its DELICIOUS... and also a little dangerous.

As I wander around village in the mornings I tend to collect mangoes. People are always offering some of their golden bounty to me and I’m happy to take what’s offered, although I admit I often end up with more than I can eat by myself. They see how much I love them and ask, “Do you have these where you come from?” (This is a popular question and since I arrived in village has been applied to everything from black people to the moon). I tell them we buy them from Mexico and this means they are expensive and I don’t eat them often. And besides, they aren’t as tasty because they don’t ripen on the tree! People love to hear that some things are just better in Africa.

I've come to believe that there’s just no way to fully appreciate the range of possible flavors offered by a mango unless you eat it fresh off the tree. For the most part, I’ve gotten pretty good at selecting them, but there is still so much variety, so many factors that keep me from ever knowing exactly what I’m about to cut into. I was so mango-ignorant for so many years! For example: did you know that you can eat the skin? Some people are actually quite allergic and it makes their lips swell up, but if you don’t have that problem or a knife you actually can just bite right into a mango. I’ve added this to my repertoire of mango-eating techniques. I have at least five now and will chose the best one based on the type of mango, size, ripeness, availability of a knife, and how messy I am willing to get. THERE IS NO WAY TO EAT A MANGO WITHOUT GETTING AT LEAST A LITTLE MESSY unless the mango is less than fully ripe and you are peeling it over a bucket of water, washing as you go and who has time for that?! I prefer to act like the greedy primate that I am and tear into my mangoes with savage ferocity and wild appetite. It’s really the only way.

Clearly the work of a mango fairy.