Memories of Mangoes

It will be mango season soon.  As you can see, the blossoms have turned into tiny fruits, and before long  the branch will grow heavy with fruit (and expectations).

Mangoes are inextricably tied to my memories of growing up.  The same is true, I bet, for most of us who were born and raised in tropical island paradises like my own.

I am rewriting here something I wrote in my journal about mangoes 14 years ago. 

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May 11, 1996

“Still, it is quite rainy, and in the neighborhood flies have taken the place of ants.  When one exclaims, “There are so many flies!”, another would answer, inevitably, “Mangoes are in season, you know.”  Though the association between flies and mangoes is altogether  puzzling to me, the same has taken on a veracity unquestioned from tradition.

Mangoes are dripping down the trees, rich yellow or Indian green, crowding the benches of the vendors in downtown sidewalks.  We devour the fruit  ripe and yellow or young and green, dipping the green ones on bowls of soy sauce mixed with vinegar and sprinkled with salt. We savor each bite with a crinkle of the eyes and a shiver. The sourer, the better, for some.  We also eat them flavored with “ginamos” a native delicacy made from tiny shrimps finely ground and salted.”

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No fruit in the world can match the richness, sweetness and greatness of the Philippine mango.  Originating from the island of Guimaras, in the Visayas, this fruit is the poor man’s  gift from God-- juicy, smooth, savory, oh so sweet. Be it eaten peeled and whole, sliced in thirds and scooped with a spoon,  or cut crisscross and  cubed, it is the perfect complement to every meal.

And what about the Indian mango that is best eaten semi ripe and dipped in soy sauce and vinegar? It evokes memories of mango picking, peeling, slicing and dipping closely entwined with school days and friendships, of  childhood capers and youthful get-togethers.

As a teenager  my gang and I would converge on a bowl of Indian mango with  “ginamos” and endless gusto.  It is  a ritual of coming together. Every other house in the neighborhood has a mango tree  and every other kid has climbed one or thrown rocks at or held sticks up to get at the fruit. It is a childhood rite come summer.

(The miniature  mango tree  in my sister in law’s garden)

This Filipino expatriate could only dream of mangoes the way only the Philippine soil and seed could grow them. This homesick expat could only envy the folks back home who, though surrounded by multitudes of flies come mango season, could  shoo and flick at the flies and all the other cares of this world   and for  a moment sit back at their tables to relish and cherish God’s blessing and benediction from the earth – the marvelous, magnificent (Philippine) mango.