MANGO

Monsoon season is the season of mangoes in the tropics. Mangoes of all sizes and shapes flood into the market. The following is description of mango from the pages of history , extracted from two books I have in my library.

The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten : Containing His Description of The East (from old English translation of 1598)

Mangas (mangoes) groweth upon trees like Chakka(Jack-fruit) trees . They are as big as a great Peach, but some what long, and a little crooked, of colour clear green, some what yellowish, and some times reddish : it hath within it a stone bigger than a Peach stone, but it is not good to be eaten. The Mangoes are inwardly yellowish, but in cutting it is waterish, yet some not so much. They have a very pleasant taste , better than a Peach, and like Annanas(Pineapple?) the most best and the most profitable fruit in all India, for it yeildeth a great quantity for food & sustainance (of the countrie people), as Olives do in Spain and Portingale.

They beare fruit upon trees, from April to November, according to the situation of the place. Those which grow in the West(coast) are smaller but of better taste & flavor; within they have a small Nut, or Kernell. Another sort groweth in Balagatte , and those are the greatest, for there are of them that weigh two pound & a quarter, of a verie pleasant taste. So are those grow in the Kingdome of Nisam Sha (Hyderabad) and like unto them are the Mangas of Bengala, Pegu and Malacca. The shel of them being taken off, is eaten in slices with Wine, and also without Wine, as we eate Peaches, they are also preserved; the better to keep them, either in Sugar, Vinegar, Oyle or Salt, like Olives in Spaine, being a little opened with a knife, they are stuffed with greene Ginger, headed Garlik, Mustard or such like, they are sometimes eaten only with Salt, and sometimes sodden with Rice, as we doe Olives, and being thus conserved and sodden, are bought in the market.

From the autobiography of Zahiruddin Babur (1483-1531) - the founder of Mughal[Mongol] Empire.


Anbah (mango) is one of the fruits peculiar to Hindustan. Hindustanis pronounce the b in its name as though no vowel followed it (anb); this being awkward to utter, some people call the fruit naghzak, as Khwaja Khusrau (Amir Khusru[1253-1325]- poet) does :

Naghzak-i ma naghz-kun-i bustan
Naghztarin mewa-i-Hindustan.

[Our fairling (ie.mango), beauty-maker of the garden
Fairest fruit of Hindustan.]

Mangoes when good(ripe) are very good, but many as are eaten, few are first-rate. They are usually plucked unripe and ripened in the house. Unripe, they make excellent condiments, are good also preserved in syrup. Taking it altogether, the mango is the best fruit of Hindustan. Some so praise it as to give it preference over all fruits except the musk-melon, but such praise outmatches it. It resembles the kardi peach. It ripens in the rains. It is eaten in two ways : one is to squeeze it to a pulp, make a hole in it, and suck out the juice - the other, to peel and eat it like kardi peach. Its tree grows very large and has a leaf somewhat resembles the peach-tree's. The trunk is ill-shaped but in Bengal and Gujrat is heard of as growing handsome.