The Mango

I’ve recently discovered the Mango as a fruit I love. It seems to me to be a connoisseur’s fruit. Mostly due to the trouble you have to go through to actually enjoy the damn thing. First off, when is it ripe? You have to be perfect in your estimation of when it’s ripe - if you eat it a few days too soon or a few days too late, the taste is off. Now most fruit is far more forgiving than this. Banana’s I can eat at nearly anytime, thought I generally enjoy a touch on the green side, but they’re good before and after that. Apples are great just about any time in their life cycle, oranges, the same way. Mango’s though, have a window of maybe a few days.

Next is getting to the fruit. The skin is thick and difficult to cut. And the shape of the pit is strange, like a flattened football. Not to mention the fact that the fruit is none too enthusiastic about seperating from the pit. And when ripe, mango’s are incredibly juicy and terribly messy. Plus the juice stains something awful - a super bright neon yellow. Oh, I almost forgot that since they are, like most fruit, pulled off the tree before they’re ripe, you have to wait until they’re ripe a process that I’ve seen take a good week and a half, and that’s sitting on the counter in a little basket - this is not a fruit to keep in the fridge.

But, despite all this, when you get one just perfect it’s almost heavenly to eat. Don’t interrupt me when I’m eating a good mango, cause let me tell you - whatever you got, it’s a far second to that mango at that moment. If there’s no blood, then it can wait.