Sundaze: A mango-summer night’s dream
eating mangoes with my bare hands
I spent most of yesterday grading papers from my couch. At some point, I got up to get something from my room but my ADHD brain remembered there was a mango sitting in my fridge. It took exactly five minutes to devour it. While I will spare you the fierce debate of which region produces the best mangoes, I will share the large red&greens are my fav. It’s sweet but not overly, it’s fleshy but not sloppy, and you can bite into it the same way you can bite into a peach.
I love that TikTok discovered eating mangoes with your hands. And I’m only half-joking when I say it’s making me appreciate where I came from. Somewhere along the cut-fruit nostalgia, I had stopped peeling mangoes with my bare hands. It’s spectacularly messy and will run down your arms. But it tastes 10x better.
I love an elaborate spread as much as the next person but I lived alone for most of my 20s. I ate a lot of meals over the sink. Straight from the pot even. While initially it was a matter of convenience and washing less dishes, I’ve unfortunately started to romanticize every single bit of living alone. Especially now that the time is coming to an end.
This may sound funny to someone who grew up in Bangladesh but one of my earliest memories of my mom is her fashioning a tool out of a broomstick + bucket to pick baby mangoes from a tree next to our old house. No one really does that…regardless of one’s perception of a third world country. We have bazaars and grocery stores where the average person gets their produce. My mom, on the other hand, managed to make anything an adventure. Our landlord, may he rest in peace, was furious. I don’t think it ever crossed his mind it was a mother-daughter duo who would wait until the last ray of the sun disappeared at Maghrib to launch their mission. On the first day of the season, we’d gather our findings at the table after dinner. Kacha aam and lobon morich on a summer night.
When we moved to America in the early 2000s, we were delighted to find people were growing mango trees in Florida. As well as some were importing from overseas. One evening, as my mom and I were coming back home, our neighbor invited us over for tea. She had twins that also went to my school but we weren’t friends. So there I was, sitting next to my mom, bored like any other 8 year old. Until this aunty made something my mom & I have continued to replicate for the rest of our lives:
Thinly sliced green mangoes, a tablespoon or two of milk, green chilis, salt, sugar and tiny bit of red chili powder if u really want it to burn.
A little appreciation thread for mangoes in every form:
Mangonada, Queens, NY:
Produce Stall, Lower East Side:
Cut up fruit, Guatemala:
Mango bhorta, Queens, NY:
Dried Chili Mango, TJ’s:
Green mango juice, heaven sent:
Local market, Colombia:
Neighbor’s influence:
Fay Da Bakery, NY:
Mango sheets, present from Thailand, consumed in NY:
Lady Wong, East Village, NY:
Pakhi’s mango + lychee, @bakingandmoshkari on IG:
Acai Bowl, DaNang, Vietnam:
Childhood fav:
What is a long forgotten food from your childhood?
As you can see, it can also be a long forgotten way of eating something vs the food itself.
Love,
Aaisha