Mango journeys of the season

Exploring different varieties of mangoes

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We have an annual summer ritual at the Times of Urbania of publishing an article about mangoes! We start seeing mangoes at Thane around February and March, and by April, the markets have many varieties to let people choose their favorites.

You can read the past two years’ issues on mangoes at: The King of King of Fruits and A dozen mango facts to enliven your summer.  

Last year’s lockdown posed challenges in sourcing mangoes as the government’s movement restrictions prevented farmers from shipping mangoes to consumers. I read the sad news that some mango farmers at Ratnagiri, famous for alphonsos, had to let fruit rot on the trees as they did not have workers to harvest it. We have transportation challenges this year and can only hope there will not be lockdowns that affect everyday life again, like in 2020.

Mango bearing and ripening happens at different times across India. You can find mangoes for most of the year, with early fruit arriving in the market in January and some markets in north and eastern India receiving mangoes till August. Barring about four months, you can find mangoes in India throughout the year.

Here is a list of mango varieties you can source at Thane and some famous across India from among thousands of Indian mango varieties.

Totapuri: This is a long mango with a pointed tip that resembles the beak of a parakeet, and thus people call it ‘totapuri’ or ‘parakeet beak’ or the local phrase for it. 

I found Totapuri at Jambhali Naka last week at a mango juice stall.  

Juice makers prefer totapuri as it is the cheapest variety with a sweet pulp. If you travel to Krishnagiri at Tamil Nadu and Chittoor at Andhra Pradesh, you will find numerous mango pulping units that work in summer and monsoon. These factories convert mango into a pulp and sell it to the packaged juice companies across India. If you consume mango juice from a Tetrapak, chances are extremely high it is from totapuri mangoes.

Unripe totapuris are more famous for their sweet-sour taste and attractive creamy yellow appearance. 

Roadside raw mango sellers sell sliced and diced totapuris that they garnish with salt and chili powder.

Totapuris do ripen and soften, but in south India, few people consume them as fruit. People there eat Totapuris primarily as raw mango slices.

Lal bagh Sindoora: This mango goes by both names, Lab bagh, and Sindoora, and some people call it by the name having both words. I have found Lal bagh at Nature’s Basket and Jambhali Naka. This variety arrives when the only other type you can buy is Alphonso and is a second choice available in March and April. 

This year, I bought small Lal Bagh mangoes early in summer from Jambhali Naka and found that they were rotting quickly and were not sweet. When I complained to the fruit seller about the poor quality Lalbagh mangoes, last week he offered me larger ones who kept well and tasted good. 

Lal bagh’s skin is green and red, with people calling it Sindoora because of its sindoor-like color. It has orange pulp, and you buy this mango by weight. This variety comes from Karnataka.

I learned a trick to prevent mango rot from a friend, Dr. M.G. Pursuhothama. If you externally disinfect mangoes you bought by dipping them in a container of salt water, then you can kill the microbes which cause rot. 

It would be best if you wiped the mangoes dry and put them for ripening in raw rice or rice husk or a brown paper bag after disinfecting them.

Alphonsos: I have bought alphonsos several times this year with no luck in getting sweet fruit after several attempts. In the first lot of alphonsos we purchased, we found spongy tissue, which is a common problem of the variety.  

When you cut average-looking alphonsos, you sometimes find whitish, sponge-like tissue, a genetically transmissible trait. So, if a tree bears fruit with spongy tissue, there is no remedy other than not harvesting its fruit. Last year, I had a similar experience with two dozen Alphonsos which we had to discard as all the fruits had spongy tissue in them.

About two weeks ago, I bought a dozen alphonsos from Nature’s Basket, going by the claim on the box of them being ripe naturally, and those mangoes also turned out bland. With alphonsos, you always risk getting fruit either bland or has spongy tissue, one reason you should explore other varieties without such inherent problems.

Kesar: This is a favorite mango in Gujarat, and you find it easily at Thane as it is one of the favored fruits for making aam ras. The expatriate Gujarati community depends on Kesar pulp in tins for making mango dishes abroad.

Kesar is a greenish-yellow oblong mango with a saffron pulp, and why people call it Kesar. Some years ago, on an overnight bus journey to Rajkot from Mumbai, I saw a continuous stretch of kiosks selling Kesar all along the highway. Though Kesar’s origin is at Junagadh, closer to the Arabian sea, farmers grow Kesar across Gujarat now, and you can easily find it in the Mumbai region.

Banganapalli: You will find Thane sellers call it Badami, which is incorrect because, in Karnataka, people call another Alphonso-like variety Badami. Banganapalli is a fruit from Andhra Pradesh, and it is golden yellow when ripe and green when unripe.  

Rose Fruits which had its stall at Azziano last year due to pandemic restrictions, was selling this variety each time they came to sell fruits. This fruit has the classical kidney-like mango shape, and you get it green from the market.  

Banganapalli is among the largest mango varieties, and you can find fruit that easily weighs a kg. It has good fibreless pulp and is a mildly sweet table fruit and a distinct flavor.

Dasheri: This mango variety from a three-hundred-year-old tree at Dasheri village in Uttar Pradesh is popular across India. You can find these green, yellow oblong fruits late in the season around June and July. 

Dasher is are good for their peach color pulp which you can eat as is or in desserts. Malihabad at UP is famous for Dasheris with the ‘mother tree’ that gives the variety its name occurring at Dasheri village.

I wish you a happy mango season ahead.