MANGO (see Color Page) : a fruit be lieved to be a native of Southern Asia but now grown in nearly all sub-tropical and tropical countries and found in many different shapes, sizes and colors. The kidney shape is the form most generally seen, but some are nearly round and others long and narrow, either crooked or straight. The size ranges from a little larger than the biggest plum up to a weight of four pounds or more. The color may be either red, green or yellow.
The quality varies as greatly as the other characteristics. The seed-stone of inferior grades is large and the flesh is so fibrous as to be of very little value, but in the best types the fibre is a negligible quantity and the stone is surrounded by a large mass of juicy, aromatic, generally orange-yellow pulp.
In addition to its use as a fresh fruit, the mango forms the basis of most Chut neys of East Indian type and is also canned and otherwise preserved.
A majority of the mangoes imported until quite recently were of the poor, fibrous kinds—which compare to properly cultivated varieties as a crab apple to a Spitzenberg!—but there is to-day a constantly increasing supply of the choice fruits. The principal season is from April to the end of June—the fruit from Mexico, the West Indies, etc., arriving first and the Florida product a little latter. The best are those from India-style trees.
A little practice is needed to acquire the art of eating a mango gracefully, yet without losing any of the aroma which distinguishes it.
The fine fibreless varieties are the most easily eaten. Such fruit is best pre pared by cutting through the skin and turning it back in a broad band, as shown in the accompanying illustration, or by making an X cut on each side, peel ing the corners back as far as possible, and temporarily laying the skin in place again to prevent the aroma from escaping. The pulp can then in either case be eaten with a spoon, like a cantalou pe, turning the skin back as necessary.
A third method sometimes employed, but requiring considerable deftness and only appropriate for immediate service and consumption, is to halve the fruit lengthwise with a sharp knife, remove the stone and serve the two halves as one would cantaloupe.
With a less delicate fruit, a better way is to cut the skin in a circle around each end and make seven or eight lengthwise incisions from circle to circle. The skin can then be easily lifted in strips and the flesh cut off in sections, lengthwise, as, or just before, eating.
To slice a mango and let it stand before serving, as is customary for peaches, is to lose much of its delicate flavor—and to try to eat it out of hand in the nonchalant manner and care-free mind with which you tackle an apple, for example, is to wish you had gotten into a bathtub to perform the operation! The principal objection that the fruit merchant has to the mango is that it is rather easily damaged in transportation.