I have a concern. In my 12 years of living outside of Trinidad, I have never once had a mango that tasted good enough to satisfy me. As juicy and ripe as they may look, they always seemed to lack the certain je ne sais quoi of a juli or starch mango and leave me wanting.
Alba, however, loves her mango. I buy it for her weekly and look on as she wolfs it down with sympathetic eyes. "Poor baby, she doesn't know what a mango is supposed to taste like", I think to myself. This all changed yesterday.
I went into the kitchen, dancing and jamming to the Cocomelon playing on the TV, and was arrested by the familiar sweet smell of a ripe mango. I picked up the one I had on the kitchen counter and began to sniff and squeeze it to determine whether it was ready to be eaten. Satisfied that it was ripe, I picked up the knife to peel and cut it up for Albs. "Hmm" I exclaimed, pleasantly surprised, as I peeled the first bit of skin off. The colour was a rich yellow and the scent was juicy and glorious. I was even more impressed when I realised I could just peel the skin off easily by pulling the knife towards me. The sight of the rough, stringy flesh made me smile as it reminded me of eating mango home and peeling it with my teeth. However, I still wasn’t tempted enough to eat the mango as I've been fooled before into thinking that a juli mango somehow made it to Europe, only to bite into a watery, rubbery fruit that’s hard to swallow and be disappointed.
"Yummy yummy mango!" I told Alba painting on the encouraging smile that I use whenever I give her food, hoping that it somehow convinces her to actually eat it and not throw it on the floor, or paste it across the table and her clothes. As usual, once she realised it was mango, she began to gobble it up.
One piece however, slipped through her hands and onto the floor. I picked it up (following the 5 second rule) and popped it into my mouth without a second thought. To my amazement juiciness exploded in my mouth. The texture was juicy, soft yet firm and fleshy, and it was sweet for so!
Eager for a second opinion I carried some slices for Hasani who was working in the bedroom. I observed as he just forked up 2 pieces and pushed them into his mouth and continued typing. When I asked him how he found it tasted, he just shrugged nonchalantly and said “like mango”, so I pressed for more details “you doh find it sweeter than usual?” His response was, “I guess…sorry babe I trying to concentrate here on something”, so not entirely sure how to read that.
Is it that due to the pandemic I’ve been outside of Trinidad for so long that I’ve now forgotten what a good mango actually tastes like? Am I losing my West Indian taste buds? Or could it be that they’ve actually started sourcing good tasting mango? Any other Trinis living abroad tasted a surprisingly good mango lately?