Mangoes like manna

For the first time in my life, the past two months, I've had unlimited all-I-can-eat access to free mangoes. How many mangoes is that? A lot. I haven't counted, but I'm sure my average consumption is upward of one mango per day. It's been a definite highlight of my transition to Preah Vihear. I'm not alone in my enjoyment: we've given away boxes and bags full, let visitors pick all they want, offered mango smoothies to every dinner guest, and left maybe 1000 to rot on the ground. And the season's not over yet!

Not pictured: about 5 more mango trees

My hosts, Jim and Carolyn, laugh at me. They say my obsessive enthusiastic mango collection efforts mark me as a newbie. And they're partly right. I've wasted a lot of time gathering and cutting into goners. But I'm learning along the way: how to use the best collection techniques, which unpromising specimens are worth a second look, and how many mangoes I'm able to eat before tiring of them. (Not enough yet!) 

In Phnom Penh, I ate plenty of mangoes too, but most of them I had to pay for, and I was only vaguely aware of the growing process. The only house I rented with mango trees was all sour mangoes which were less appealing to me, and the landlords never invited my housemates and me to help ourselves. I haven't had free access to fruit since my childhood in Vermont, when my family went to pick raspberries and blackberries down the road every summer. So I've enjoyed investigating one of my favorite-ever foods.

In our yard, we have two main types: one called "turmeric" because of the flesh's dark yellow color, and one called "Chinese," which are are less common and more prized. I'm not sure of the English names because many varieties in this article look like what we have. They're both tasty, but the Chinese ones are more fragrant, less fibrous, and commonly considered more delicious, which I can understand. 

My friend Sina's dad has turmeric mango trees on his farm, and I asked how he cares for them. He said they don't need any care, they just grow, but he's been cutting them down because there's no market for them. I get his point. With no freezer space and quickly ripening mangoes, I'm having trouble keeping up with the bounty. The few sellers in town that bother with them are advertising 1000 riel ($0.25) per kilo. When multiple friends declined to take any mangoes home because they have too many, it reminded me of my favorite Vermonter joke:

Q: Why do Vermonters lock their cars?

A: To keep their neighbors from putting zucchini inside.

I've observed four basic techniques for harvesting mangoes:

1. The Easter Egg Hunt. By far the easiest method, and how perfect is it that mango season and Easter occur so close together? But it's frowned upon by many Cambodians because the fallen ones are often overripe and/or full of worms. Not always, though! I found many that were only half-filled with worms (hey, if one side is still good, why not?) and some that were unscathed.

I hesitated to pick up this yellow mango, but it was in perfect condition

This technique works especially well after a storm. It's literally a windfall, where pristine mangoes are torn from their branches and whipped to the ground with terrific force. If they're still firm enough, they won't even be bruised. But these days, when I hear mangoes falling, there are so many already on the ground that it's hard to spot the latest arrivals.

Cows are also partial to this technique. We don't mind, but the local cowherd does. (He never used to, so we're theorizing it might be because of the big new wall that the Gabriels' landlord built around the perimeter last year.) They seem to be OK with even the rotting ones - good for them!

2. The Lacrosse Game. AKA the "right" way. The apparatus varies, but basically you need a very long pole attached to some sort of basket. It's possible to buy a mango picker, but the Gabriels and many others prefer the DIY route, attaching a bamboo pole to a soda bottle with a hole cut out of the side. Ours was missing a slit at the top to help catch and cut the stem, so Carolyn helped me improve it, which really helped. Previously the mangoes all seemed to fall out of the bottle when I pulled it down.

This month marked my first successful experience picking mangoes this way. Previously I'd watched others when visiting people with mango trees, but my occasional brief attempts had ended in frustration and my turn being given to another guest. At the Gabriels', with no one else in line, I've had a chance for more practice. I still get irritated trying to pick the less-ripe ones which are firmly attached to the tree, even though the ideal time to pick a mango is when only the top is turning yellow. But the fully yellow ones are so ripe they practically fall off when you breathe in their general direction. 

This mango ended up on top of my Easter custard, shown below

The Plas Prai dorm students are master mango pickers. They harvested probably 200 good ones from our yard in about 15 minutes in late March. I need to get them to come back soon for a repeat performance, since they have 40+ mouths and almost no mango trees on their property. Our landlords and other visitors, including the roofing crew shown below, also picked some mangoes to take home from the two "Chinese" mango trees out front. 

3. The Piñata. Sometimes it's easier to bludgeon the mangoes to the ground than it is to secure them in the soda bottle and gently lower them. The green ones are resilient enough that this can actually be an effective strategy. This technique also commonly occurs by accident while trying to situate the mango picker. Mangoes on long stems swing around at least as much as piñatas, and it's much more difficult to aim with a 12-foot bamboo pole than with a 2-foot baseball bat. It's a fun surprise to see which mangoes actually come down!

4. The Fly-By. This technique is not available to humans but is widely practiced among moths and other winged creatures, who lay their eggs in the mangoes. Presto! What seemed to be a delectable mango with one tiny spot on the peel can turn out to be as crisscrossed as an ant farm inside. I think they're the biggest winners in our mango jackpot, accounting for about 1/3 of our mangoes. But that's OK... there's plenty to go around.

Plas Prai dorm students and I made mango bread with mangoes picked by their classmates

My plan to bring mango bread to Plas Prai's Khmer New Year party spurred on my scavenging through early April

Easter dessert: mango coconut custard adorned with a fresh-picked mango (see picking video above in #2) 

Preah Vihear has a limited selection of groceries, but it's amazing to me to find mangoes in such abundance. Picking them, especially off the ground, reminds me of the Israelites in the wilderness. They went out each morning to gather manna that they hadn't worked for, didn't understand, and mostly took for granted. To an unappreciative bunch of whiners, day by day, God gave a life-sustaining gift. 

I don't know if I'll be quite this diligent every year to gather, slice, freeze, and cook with mangoes. But I'm committed to spend time each year enjoying them and helping others enjoy them. They are still my favorite part of hot season and a source of joy to this highly experienced whiner. Mangoes, like manna, are a relentless gift.