A little bit of history to start with. A good 80 years ago my grandma with her brood including my dad, then a toddler was travelling by train from Chennai to Kolkatta. Leaving out the gross details (how it is always narrated by my aunts), my dad cried from the word go. His elder sister found a way to calm him by giving him a mango to suck on. This worked. A toddler dad polishing a crateful of mangoes and the gastronomic consequences thereby have been anecdotal in my family ever since.
Fast forward to 2003. Me a young bride then, confessed to my family how mangoes talk to me and how the urge to eat mangoes mindless of the time of the day cannot be supressed. The Chandran Mahaldars have always taken their Mango very seriously.I have the annual Mango weight gain going up a few dress sizes, resulting from indiscriminate consumption of atleast a dozen mangoes at one go. I battle the extra baggage over the next 10 months till it is time for the next season of sheer golden fructose bliss. My cheeks glow golden and the house smells ethereal with the ripening mangoes.
Goa, a former Portuguese colony has a special variant of the alfonso mango called the Mancurad. For the non initiated there is no tangible difference between the two. The mancurad has a golden yellow fibrous mantle but is nectar sweet upto the seed and comes in the market before the other mangoes of the season. In Goa they are sold at the price of gold and a exingency mango budget in the summer months has to be allocated if my mango cravings have to be satisfied. An hours drive out of Goa into Maharashtra takes one into a mango haven for lesser mortals.In Vengurla the Goan Mancurad is sold at half the price and being a port town fresh fish is an added bonus. we do this annual Mahaldar Mancurad route to maharashtra and this time we were rewarded with the pristine beach with shimmering golden sand against the setting sun.
Fast forward to 2003. Me a young bride then, confessed to my family how mangoes talk to me and how the urge to eat mangoes mindless of the time of the day cannot be supressed. The Chandran Mahaldars have always taken their Mango very seriously.I have the annual Mango weight gain going up a few dress sizes, resulting from indiscriminate consumption of atleast a dozen mangoes at one go. I battle the extra baggage over the next 10 months till it is time for the next season of sheer golden fructose bliss. My cheeks glow golden and the house smells ethereal with the ripening mangoes.
Goa, a former Portuguese colony has a special variant of the alfonso mango called the Mancurad. For the non initiated there is no tangible difference between the two. The mancurad has a golden yellow fibrous mantle but is nectar sweet upto the seed and comes in the market before the other mangoes of the season. In Goa they are sold at the price of gold and a exingency mango budget in the summer months has to be allocated if my mango cravings have to be satisfied. An hours drive out of Goa into Maharashtra takes one into a mango haven for lesser mortals.In Vengurla the Goan Mancurad is sold at half the price and being a port town fresh fish is an added bonus. we do this annual Mahaldar Mancurad route to maharashtra and this time we were rewarded with the pristine beach with shimmering golden sand against the setting sun.
