Adieu to the King
Summer is on its way out. As the weather cools down, children get ready for a new school year, and monsoons. Beside the fact that I am no fan of diseases and dirty puddles I hate to see summer go for one very deliciously sweet reason - MANGOES!
We went overboard with mangoes this summer. We more than made up for the depravity of the last six years. From super markets to cart vendors, from farmers markets to mango orchards from vegetable shops to even more vegetable shops, why, even online! We bought mangoes from everywhere! If they were available, we would still be getting them, but alas, summer lasts only for three short months. But nevertheless I am grateful to have had my heart's fill.
Few fruits have such variety like the mango. They come in a horde of sizes & shapes, smooth & wrinkled, in various hues of green, yellow, orange & red. Long, thin, pointy, round, stout & tiny; the shapes are very many. But they all have one thing in common - they are all irresistible!
But speaking of variety, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Being India's national fruit there are hundreds of varieties in this country. Apparently a farmer some where in North India has four hundred varieties of mangoes just in his orchard and as if that wasn't enough, he went ahead and made one more called 'Namo' - in honor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi!
Mangoes take me back to summer vacations in our childhood when my cousins and I climbed mango trees in my Dad's ancestral home to pick mangoes defying gravity and mom's warnings and braving some serious ant bites. I have suffered many a skinned knee and scraped elbows in the process, but hardly noticed them. Come next day and we are all back on top of that tree laboring, felling mangoes.
Although now I don't even have a fraction of the labor to do, the fruits are still sweet nevertheless!
Here, let me try to list out the varieties that we have tired in the past three months: -
Kesar
Banganampalli
King Alphonso
Ratnagiri Alphonso
Badami
Benishan
Gulab Khas
Himayat
Sindhuri,
Mallika
Dassari
Choosa
Rasal
Malgova
Roomali
Langda
That sure is a long list. But now that it is here, the pertinent question is which of these mangoes is ultimate in taste. And the winner is .... Kesar!! Hands down!! If mango is the king of fruits, then Kesar is the King among kings!!! A fruit so delicious and juicy, a rhapsody in the taste buds.
Banagampally is the quintessential star of Andhra giving a close competition to Kesar. So are the Alphonso varieties. Himayat gives you value for money. Dussheri, Choosa and Rasal are to be punctured and the juice squeezed directly in to the mouth. But beware of Rasal. If you've had one too many, your tummy's had it! Malgova is interestingly sweet and sour. Roomali and Langda were delightful too.
But the most surprising of them was a nameless variety that was gifted to us by a friend who owns an orchard. Even the unripe mangoes were extremely delicious. Such is the delight of eating this fruit. Summer is over but I have memories to last me a lifetime that are sweet, in the literal sense of the word.
 |
| Himayat |
We went overboard with mangoes this summer. We more than made up for the depravity of the last six years. From super markets to cart vendors, from farmers markets to mango orchards from vegetable shops to even more vegetable shops, why, even online! We bought mangoes from everywhere! If they were available, we would still be getting them, but alas, summer lasts only for three short months. But nevertheless I am grateful to have had my heart's fill.
Few fruits have such variety like the mango. They come in a horde of sizes & shapes, smooth & wrinkled, in various hues of green, yellow, orange & red. Long, thin, pointy, round, stout & tiny; the shapes are very many. But they all have one thing in common - they are all irresistible!
But speaking of variety, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Being India's national fruit there are hundreds of varieties in this country. Apparently a farmer some where in North India has four hundred varieties of mangoes just in his orchard and as if that wasn't enough, he went ahead and made one more called 'Namo' - in honor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi!
 |
| Ratnagiri Alphonso |
Mangoes take me back to summer vacations in our childhood when my cousins and I climbed mango trees in my Dad's ancestral home to pick mangoes defying gravity and mom's warnings and braving some serious ant bites. I have suffered many a skinned knee and scraped elbows in the process, but hardly noticed them. Come next day and we are all back on top of that tree laboring, felling mangoes.
Although now I don't even have a fraction of the labor to do, the fruits are still sweet nevertheless!
Here, let me try to list out the varieties that we have tired in the past three months: -
Kesar
Banganampalli
King Alphonso
Ratnagiri Alphonso
Badami
Benishan
Gulab Khas
Himayat
Sindhuri,
Mallika
Dassari
Choosa
Rasal
Malgova
Roomali
Langda
That sure is a long list. But now that it is here, the pertinent question is which of these mangoes is ultimate in taste. And the winner is .... Kesar!! Hands down!! If mango is the king of fruits, then Kesar is the King among kings!!! A fruit so delicious and juicy, a rhapsody in the taste buds.
Banagampally is the quintessential star of Andhra giving a close competition to Kesar. So are the Alphonso varieties. Himayat gives you value for money. Dussheri, Choosa and Rasal are to be punctured and the juice squeezed directly in to the mouth. But beware of Rasal. If you've had one too many, your tummy's had it! Malgova is interestingly sweet and sour. Roomali and Langda were delightful too.
 |
| Roomali |
But the most surprising of them was a nameless variety that was gifted to us by a friend who owns an orchard. Even the unripe mangoes were extremely delicious. Such is the delight of eating this fruit. Summer is over but I have memories to last me a lifetime that are sweet, in the literal sense of the word.
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