Mango the King

Alphanso -the king of mangoes

It was quite mind boggling actually. At Talkatora stadium in Delhi, many many years ago ( I am actually talking about 1990) I was taken to a mango fair/festival by a friend. It was early July and I was stumped at various varieties of mango. They said more than 200 varieties were on display. They were of all  shapes and sizes and some were real funny looking. You could taste many for free and buy a lot as well. The arena smelt of - guess what? Mango ! 

Some Pakistani varieties were proving to be very popular , probably because of our fascination for the food habits of our not so friendly neighbours. As tasting was free, families had arrived in full force starting with grandparents and going down to toddlers. They were busy devouring whatever they could lay their hands on.  It was indeed a fascinating experience and to think that I have not visited the fair again even though it is an annual feature would be surprising considering that I am quite fond of mangoes, but it was the mess that put me off.  People had eaten mangoes and thrown all the skin and seed on the ground. It wasn't an attractive sight.

India grows 1500 varieties of mangoes and 1000 commercial varieties, so the figure of 200  should not have been very surprising. But effectively we taste around 8-10 varieties of mangoes each season so we are familiar with those only. But no fruit is discussed and eaten as much as Mango in India and once the season ends, it is kind of a deja vu. You get back to apples and bananas and the mango hangover remains. 

Having been born and brought up at Lucknow, mangoes were a plenty there. Malliahabad was just 30 km’s from there and Malliahabad is the prime region for mango cultivation and most popular mango here is the Dusherri mango. As you drive from Lucknow to Malliahabad you cross Kakori and go on Hardoi road. Kakori is famous for those kababs which melt in your mouth and also for the train robbery during India’s quest for independence in 1925. As you approach Malliahabad, you get fascinated by thousands of mangoes hanging from the trees. You actually want to stop and pluck them off the branches. My first impression was when my dad had taken us there when I was around 7 years old and I could not believe seeing so many mangoes hanging from trees and ready to be plucked. At many farms ripe mangoes had been plucked and neatly assembled on the ground like a neat bed – I just went and lay on top of them. It felt divine.The farm owner had soaked some mangoes for us in a bucket and he told us that we could eat as many as we could. He gave us quite a few as gifts as we left. 

The Mango Man of Malliahabad with his trophies.

Kaleem Ullah Khan was awarded Padma Shri in 2008 and he is known as the ‘mango man’ of this region. It’s said that he has grown 300 varieties of mango on one tree. This seems quite unbelievable but is apparently true. Dusherri is a small village near Malliahabad and the mango has made this village famous. The mango tree which started all this is still there and is still revered and belongs to the ancestors of Nawab of Oudh.

My school friend Dharam Raj Singh has farms at Hardoi near Lucknow and he keeps posting pictures of certain exotic varieties of mangoes which bare never seen in the market. Some of these he grows at his farms and some he gets from the farms of his other farmer friends. Unfortunately he has not sent me any mango variety so far so I can't comment on the quality he produces. 

This tree has seen 300 varities

Alphanso is known as the king of mangoes. The King !  Ratnagiri in Maharashtra is known to be centre for this mango. (Trivia: Dawood Ibrahim was born and brought up in Ratnagiri). It's said that name Alphanso is derived from Afonso de Alberquerque, a Portuguese army General. Portugese introduced grafting on mango trees which produced the tasty varities like Alphonso. We have enough Alphanso’s available now in Delhi during the season but earlier this was not the case. It was mostly exported and was limited to a few regions of Maharashtra. Only the elite of Bombay used to buy it. Some enterprising person who cultivated Alphanso at Ratnagiri had started to ship his crop to different parts of the country and also abroad. He priced it quite reasonably at Rs 600 including courier charges. His company was called Bangoes. I started ordering on his website and a beautifully packaged box of 12 mangoes would arrive with instructions how to store them and only when ripe, keep them in fridge. Alphanso in most exported variety of India and the best come in April and May. This is good as the other mango which comes in these months is Safeda – and I am not too fond of it. 

But you can’t ignore Safeda as it starts in April and is available till July. That is a real long innings so we will give it the award of man of the match.  The best of it is from mid May to end June. It is fleshy and sweet. As Safeda is the first mango of the season people get very excited seeing it and often get disappointed initially as it is not as sweet as the appearance looks like. It is really bright looking and large sized. It grows in taste as season progresses. So while everyone was stuck with one variety during May and June- I was enjoying Alphanso also during this time, thanks to Bangoes. Alphanso goes brilliantly well with vanilla Ice cream and in different puddings. The flesh is bright yellow and looks so attractive when cut and served. My favourite remains the mango trifle which is made out of bed of vanilla sponge cake and layered with Alphanso mango, vanilla ice cream with some custard, mango juice and a dash of rum. My wife Devicka makes it very well but it is I who gobbles it up at each meal and then get scared of the weighing scale. 

Mango trifle being chilled. Alphanso mangoes were used in this instance giving it the brightness of the colour of mango that can be seen in the picture

In one of the foodie groups someone had sent a photograph of their favourite breakfast - the mango sandwich. I must say it looked pretty cool though I haven't experimented with it. 

Perfect Breakfast ? 

Bangoes also took orders for Kesari mangoes. Kesari is mainly from Gujarat but Bangoes cultivated it at their farm. It is also called Gir Kesar as it is grown in foothills of Girnar in districts of Junagadh Amreli. I could only enjoy this unique flavoured mango once as they have a very short growth window and that time of the year is normally my annual vacation. Bangoes still does this and sends mangoes but now we have Alphanso's available in all good supermarkets and other fruit shops so that unique charm has gone out of ordering from website. Once in Bangalore I went to a tourist park where mango fair was being held and saw several variants of Alphanso’s. I can’t actually vouch that they were Alphanso’s but they were pretty good. And they were so cheap that I wanted to pack them and courier them to Delhi.

Alphanso may be the king of mangoes in India but it is the ‘Red Mango’ or the Miyazaki mango of Japan which is known as most luxurious fruit in the world. And there is a purple mango as well which is cultivated in Indonesia. So, we do have competition.

The Red Mango from Japan

The famous poet Mirza Ghalib was quite obsessed with mangoes. In several of his letters to his friends he would request them to send baskets of mangoes. There are a few couplets he wrote about mango and there is a tribute to the fruit in his famous poem called the 'Dar-Shifat-e Ambah.' 

It would be unfair to say that people love the sweetness of mangoes only. The mango chutney, mango pickle, Aam ka panna and mango jam are some instances of tanginess and sourness of the fruit the adaptation of which are available to us through the year. Mango pulp is even used to make the famous drink Rooh-Afza. Our club normally has a one week mango festival and each day some different pudding is prepared and served which include the very popular mango souffle. 

There is a mango called Neelam which is very popular in Hyderabad and is sold in much of South India along with Raspuri but hardly makes an appearance in North so I have not much idea about it. Raspuri from Karnataka must be good as it is called the Queen of mangoes and sold in abundance. 

The colour on fruit carts change from yellow to green as Langra makes an appearance at the end of June.  Benaras or Varanasi is where this variety is grown and it is a real fleshy mango with some sharp fibrous pulp which some people don’t enjoy as roughness touches the throat. It was apparently grown by a lame person in Benaras so got the name of 'langra.' I personally like this mango and this also goes very well with Vanilla Ice cream. Just cut into small cubes and mix with vanilla ice cream and it is delicious as its tangy sweet taste complements this combination. Dusherri and Langra make appearance almost at the same time.  You will often see them on same cart of the seller. I normally intend to buy one variety but this year crop has been so plentiful that fruit seller manages to convince me to buy a few kilos of each at very cheap price. The car smells so mangoish after these mangoes remain in car for a couple of hours. Delicious !

Langra, Dusherri and chusney wala aam make appearance almost at the same time from end of June. 

Somewhere along the way ‘Totapuri’ also makes an appearance in north India but doesn’t appeal much to us.  It is mainly sold in Andhra, Karnataka and TN. My mom used to be very fond of those small ‘Dinga’ mangoes which are juicy and have very little flesh and are meant to be sucked of their sweet juice. These are really small and very yellow and make an appearance in July and disappear also very fast. On the fruit seller's cart they do look tempting as they contrast between green colours of Langra and Dusherri. 

Mango Shake with Dusherri is another favourite of mine with crushed ice and mixed well in mixie. I find some similarity in taste between Alphanso and Dusherri so both are good for milk shake but dusherri is better. It might be fattening but as no added sugar is required, it is difficult to resist this temptation. Dusherri can be very deceptive as it appears to be a bit undone from outside but you may find it over ripe inside. For almost 20 -25 days this mango floods the market in North India.

Alauddin Khilji may not have been able to lay his hands on Padmavati but he made sure that he had mango with each meal. The almanacs say he was passionate about this fruit. Mughals are known to have a soft spot for the fruit as Akbar created an orchard of 1 lakh mango trees near Darbhanga in Bihar. Jehangiri is an expensive mango which carries Mughal empror's name till this date. Shah Jahan loved mangoes from Mazagaon so he had daily couriers travelling all the way to him with his favourite fruit. In 1687 as Mughal army laid siege to the fort of Golcanda, Abul Hasan tried to bribe mighty Aurangzeb with gems, jewellery, money and Mangoes !  And Sher Shah Suri is said to have given the name to 'Chausa mango' from the name of town in  Bihar just as he defeated mughal empror 'Humayun.'  Chausa is large yellow mango which comes from Bihar and UP in July and stays put till mid August. I love this mango though some find it very sweet. I find the taste very addictive  and  it has a large seed but still it is fleshy. Actually I wait for Chausa as it is my favourite mango. The flesh is yellow with some golden hue. It has aroma, look and taste. Chausa is also very popular in Pakistan and is grown in Mirpur Khas Sindh in Punjab of Pakistan. 

When talking about mangoes I always remember the fruit seller who used to come to our colony during my childhood during peak summer and used to tell me '- 'Bhaiya - I am charging you not for the mango but only for guthli (seed). He would then make a loud announcement in a sing song manner for the full colony to know that he had arrived.  ' Aam le lo Aam, sirf guthli ke daam ( Take mangoes from me and I will just just charge for the kernel/seed and not the mango). 

As I mentioned earlier, this is a fruit which is most discussed and eaten in India. There are many arguments regarding which is most popular or most tasty and each person would be correct according to his taste preference. According to me the Alphanso may be the king of mangoes but mango is definitely the king of all fruits.