Mangoes

In the back yard is a mango tree. An ancient specimen, it is easily as old as the house. My grandfather planted it as a sapling shortly after moving in. Before the house had fences, it had this tree.

The tree was well established long before I was born. As a child, I used to climb the tree whenever I was willing to brave the rough bark and green ants. There was rarely a time when the tree did not play host to a platoon of green ants, which are fun to annoy as long as you don't give them skin to bite. They have this fabulous way of raising themselves on their hind legs and reaching out to get you, jaws extended. It's very exciting, if mildly dangerous.

I've never eaten a green ant, although I've been told they taste slightly of citrus. I have been bitten by them many a time, though. They are tenacious little beasts, once they get their pincers into you. On more than one occasion, I've tried to remove a biting green ant only to have the head separate from the body. So determined were they that they simply would not let go - not even to save themselves from being torn apart. I'm reasonably sure the head remained alive for a moment thereafter, just to keep biting. It always took a few seconds to get rid of the head, and even then the sting remained for some time after. They tell me green ants have a substance on their pincers that aggravate the sting. I believe them.

The mango tree is significantly older than I am, but still produces fruit. I have seen mango trees well over 60 years that still drop their fruit all over the ground to carpet the parks and pathways around town. Every year, as we come into summer, the trees burst forth in an excess of drupes, which largely go towards feeding the local fruit bat population. The bats grab the fuit, take one bite and drop the remainder to the ground, where the birds peck at it for the next couple of days. My mother has always found this intensely annoying. She feels the bats should have the decency to eat the whole fruit, if they are going to take it.

I find this interesting, as she eats approximately one mango a season. If it was left to her, the fruit would probably rot on the tree. At least, once the bats have thrown it to the ground, a number of other critters can get to it. Birds, insects, possums...

I used to hate mangoes. I couldn't stand the smell of them, and found the taste obnoxious. I could never understand why anyone would want to eat them. Then, one day, I found myself drawn to them. I wanted to try eating them, even though I could not explain why. I couldn't even bring myself to eat more than a few cubes of a cut mango. I had to share the mango with my grandmother, or it would go entirely to waste.

That was a nice experience, actually: learning to appreciate mangoes by sharing them with my grandmother. By this stage in time she was no longer capable of cutting them up for herself (you have to stand up for a while to cut up a mango, and she didn't have the legs for it anymore). Plus, she seemed to get great pleasure out of sharing the mangoes with me.

I acquired the taste for them over time. Eventually, I would find myself cutting up two mangoes - one for each of us. And then, of course, it was just one for myself.

Now I love them. I quite look forward to mango season and can happily eat a mango a day. I find, however, that I am not up to the challenge of eating all of the mangoes we manage to save from the bats. If I paid more attention, I would get them to work in time to share with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I tend to forget to do such things until they are slightly over-ripe and not fit for sharing.

So my challenge is to emulate generations of fruit growing families before me and find things to make with the fruit that is passed the "fit for eating" stage. I found a recipe for mango sorbet the other day, which proved rather successful. And I stumbled across a recipe for a mango tart, which I have yet to try. It would be a shame to take the fruit from the bats, birds, insects and possums if I was not going to make good use of it, after all...