Monday, April 06, 2009

The King is here

I am referring to the king of fruits Mango! I LOVE THEM. Long live Mangoes! But what surprised me was the discovery that this yummy thing is our national fruit! (Here's the proof) Now why didn't I know that before?????

How appropriate! I also discovered that India produces the largest number of mangoes in the world and that we have over a 100 varieties of them. I have only eaten about dozen of them so far and have 88 more varieties to go. This needs some serious planning I say.

I miss the days when we just sat on the Kushala maami's Chavadi (verandah) with a basket of ripe mangoes and just gorged on them first thing in the morning, everyday through out the summer.

I have kicked off this season with some Badami variety. One is not getting fully riped ones yet so I store them in my rice dabba and check on it everyday if it has ripened. Sometimes I can't wait so I eat the raw, tangy ones squeezing my face into a million angles. But what joy :D

2 comments:

Kannan said...

:-). I too miss those mango days. Back then in my father's house, our mornings began with search missions, scanning the entire area for mangoes fallen the previous night. Rest of the day will be spent visiting the mango storage room. How I hated those creaking doors. After two or three visits, my grandma would lock the room. Then I would climb up the trees and make do with raw, almost ripened, and sometimes crow-bitten ones. At my mother's house, trees were too tall, so climbing was out of question. We had to contend with raw ones, eaten with salt and chilly powder.

Abhipraya said...

Those were the days weren't they? And mangoes with chilly and salt my mouth's watering :D