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| Photo courtesy of Paula Henry |
Here in the NT, it’s the end of a blistering summer. And while I often associate pyramids of cherries and plums and nectarines as the quintessential summer fruit, let’s not forget the less-than-humble mango. And we have mangos in abundance and local in Central Australia. You can buy a whole tray of Kents each Saturday from a truck at the local servo for $30. They are grown in Ti Tree, about 100kms north of Alice Springs. They are beautiful and fleshy, with no strings, but they’re missing something.
Mangos are a fruit that need to be smelled as well
as eaten. I have never been able to get over the scent of pesticide on
mangos being sold in Australia’s fruit-fly free zone. It is an absolute
compromise, and almost worth a trip to the NT or North Queensland (or Broome)
to experience a pesticide free mango. However, my most disappointing mango
experience was purchasing one from an African man in the metro in Paris. I was
feeling home-sick at the beginning of a European winter, and it was as far from
a mango as I had ever eaten. It was one of those defining moments when I
realised I needed to return to Australia.
Growing up in north Queensland, I have often found
it difficult to reconcile the price of mangos in the fruit-fly free zone with
the rotting mangos littering our school grounds as a child. They may have
been turpentines, a variety of I haven’t seen for years, and one with a big
aroma!
There are mango groves throughout north Queensland,
planted by the kidnapped South Sea Islanders who worked on the cane fields.
My mother was often finding secret groves and collecting green mangos for
her annual green chutney. Apart from a green mango, the aroma of a mango
is an essential part of the eating experience.
So, we now have a glut of mangos, and they’re ripe,
not green, and don’t smell as pungent as I’d like. So, what do with them?
My Italian Nonna would make a beautiful mango jam that I would eat by the
spoonful, but I recently tried a new sticky rice with mango recipe and it was a
big success. The recipe came from my sister while she was in Cambodia
over the Christmas break, visiting schools for orphans and taking cooking
classes in her spare time. I had previously tried to steam sticky rice
Laos style, with very disappointing results. This recipe and process is
much easier and tastes great. Thanks Pauly
