The king of Indian fruits is in town.
The first mangoes of the season are never the best, whether they’re Alphonsos, Himsagars or Dussehris, but it doesn’t matter — to a palate deprived of mangoes all winter, the first hit of any mango, no matter how resinous or thin of flavour, is sweet.
Over the years, the Alphonso has become the default standard for Indian mangoes, much to the indignation of champions of the Langda, the Banganpalli or the Kesar. The Alphonso is a one-note samba, say its detractors, its fame resting on its sweetness and its fragrance. The Langda has more body, more complexity and far more texture — but Alphonso fans sneer, pointing at the stringiness of the Langda, and at the turpentine undertone. The Kesar is a bright saffron colour and its fans will extol its ambrosial sweetness, cut slightly with acid, over the Hapoos. If you want sweetness, say Banganapalli advocates, go no further — at which point the Langda fans will hit back, calling the Banganapalli too sugary.
These days, it’s only at the annual International Mango Festival, traditionally held in Delhi in July, that we get to sample the rarer varieties of mangoes, including the hard-to-get (in north India) Imampasand. The Batasha mangoes of Murshidabad, for instance, were famed for their concentrated, sun-ripened sweetness and are now a threatened variety. Totapuris, known for their parrot-beak shape, are still found, as are Chausas and the Gulab khas, but it’s hard to locate the Ananas in Goa, or the increasingly rare Jahangir.
We have relatively few mango recipes. There are mango desserts in plenty: the feeble mango fool of the British Raj pales in comparison with the delicacy of a Gujarati aam shrikhand, where the density of the hung yoghurt blends exquisitely with any of the sweeter mango varieties. Bengal, Orissa, Assam and many of the states in south India have versions of aam kheer, a deceptively easy ‘party’ dessert if you can stand the long hours of stirring the kheer will take. And a Pairi mango milkshake is ambrosial in summer.
But Indian cooking doesn’t incorporate the mango as an ingredient as a rule. Green mangoes are ubiquitous — as pickles, in complex ‘kaacha aam jhols’ made into light chutneys in Bengal (one savoury version is served with fish roes), in pachadis and raitas. Restaurants use mangoes experimentally in seasonal menus: the Smokehouse Grill, for instance, does an amazing fruit butter. (Try making fruit butters at home and pairing them with steamed fish, or grilled pork, with leftover mangoes.) Asian restaurants use the mango better — Thai cuisine pairs mangos with tofu, fish and chicken quite well, and an easy Asian-style mango salsa would incorporate chunks of ripe but not-too-sweet mangoes, chopped red bird’s eye chillis, and a lime juice-sugar-fish sauce dressing with coriander. Cooked properly, which is to say not overcooked, it’s a fantastic pairing with black mushrooms, or bamboo shoots, or some of the more robust meats.
Mango and pork curries exist in both the Goan and the Anglo-Indian kitchen; the Suriani (Syrian Christian) kitchen uses mango pickles inventively, in a raw banana curry. I’ve had mango biryani only once, though, and it was a complex, interesting blend — the mangoes balanced the lamb perfectly, imparting a sweet-sourness to the rice.
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But perhaps the reason we don’t have a rich legacy of mango recipes is that mangoes really are best eaten au naturel. In David Davidar’s The House of Blue Mangoes, the protagonists embark on a great Indian mango yatra in an attempt to locate the perfect mango (their final choice is controversial), and find their way to a Nawab’s orchard: “He first munched on a spicy, coarsely ground kabab so that his palate was completely fresh and then delicately picked at a little of the heart flesh of the Gulabkhas, a mango that tasted of roses.” Mango lovers will disapprove of the excessive delicacy — a good mango is meant to be juiced, and never mind if your hands and face get sticky — but approve of the care and attention to detail.
[Nilanjana S Roy is a Delhi-based editor and writer]