Mango - the King of Fruits

Much has been written about the influence of popular culinary items that now form the mainstay of Indian cuisine, which are not indigenous but were imported by the Portuguese. These include chillies, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cashews, papaya, pineapples, peanuts, tapioca, guava and chikoos (sapodillas). But did you know that the Portuguese also exported Indian culinary items like mangoes, sugarcane, pepper and many other spices to far-flung areas of the world including S America and Africa?

The mango tree is considered indigenous to southern Asia, especially the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas including North Myanmar and the Indian state of Assam. 

The species name of Mango is Mangiferi indica, which means “an Indian plant bearing mangos.” Mango is the succulent, aromatic fruit of an evergreen tree and a member of Anacardiaceae, the family of flowering plants that includes cashews, pistachios and poison ivy. Botanically mango is a drupe, consisting of an outer skin, edible flesh and a central stone enclosing a single seed (other stone fruits include plum, cherry, peach and olives).

The Indo-Persian poet Amir Khusrow deemed the mango to be “Naghza Tarin Mewa Hindustan,” which translates to “the fairest fruit of India.”

The Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi summed up the delight of mangoes in the following plea in a letter to a friend: 

“Neither letter nor message from my beloved send to me,

If you must send something this season, mangoes let them be.

Make sure these are some I can keep to eat another day,

If 20 be ripe, add another 10 that can stay.”

Mangoes currently rank fifth by weight in total production among major fruit crops worldwide, after bananas, watermelons, apples and oranges. India ranks first among the world’s mango-producing countries, accounting for 54.2% of the total mangoes produced worldwide - but only 1% of the export business, as most of it is consumed locally. Other prominent mango-producing countries include China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Mexico.

In India, the fruit’s season is officially recognized as 100 days long, from late March through June. The best time to plant a graft is in the monsoon season  — that is July through August. Once mature, the trees start to flower around February and March as the weather warms up. Before that, the orchard is cleaned of weeds, irrigated, and the soil amended. By April, you can see the unripe mangoes and around May and June, the fruits start to ripen in the summer heat.

The Portuguese were fascinated by the fruit on their arrival in Calicut (now Kozhikode), Kerala in the 15th century and introduced the fruit to the rest of the world as ‘Mango’, from the Malayalam 'Maanga'. 

The Portuguese also established an international mango trade dubbed 'Mango diplomacy' and grafted specimens of trees which led to the creation of the Alphonso variety, named after Portuguese general Alphonso de Albuquerque, sending them to the Mogul courts where they were highly prized. Akbar, the Mughal emperor (1556 – 1605 AD) planted an orchard of 1,00,000 mango trees in Lakh Bagh near Darbhanga. The most important Indian mango cultivars including Alphonso, Dashehari, Langra etc., are selections that were made at the time of Akbar (1542–1605 AD) and have therefore been propagated vegetatively for several hundred years.

The mango is inextricably connected with the folklore and religious ceremonies of India.  The well-known Indian paisley pattern may have been inspired by the curved shape of the fruit.  In Indian culture, mango leaves are hung during special ceremonies at entrances and in temples to welcome love, good fortune and prosperity. Lord Ganesha is often shown holding a ripe mango in one hand which symbolizes prosperity. Buddha himself was presented with a mango grove that he might find repose in its grateful shade.  It was likely spread throughout Asia by Buddhist monks before traders took the fruit further afield. 

Mangoes possess anti-diabetic, anti-oxidant, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory properties. The bark, gum, leaves, pit and flower have been used for thousands of years to treat sundry ailments, from diarrhoea to rheumatism, asthma to scabies. The bark and leaves of a mango tree yield a wonderful yellow dye that is fantastic for cotton, wool, and silk. The wood from the tree is used across India for cheap furniture, ceiling and floorboards, tea chests, and boat building.  

References:

1. Yadav, D., & Yadav, S. (1975). Mango: History origin and distribution. Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, JPP 2017; 6(6): 1257-1262, 1257–1261.
2. Talukder, P. (2022, July 21). Mango mania: The history and culture of mangoes. The Science Survey. Retrieved January 5, 2024, from https://thesciencesurvey.com/spotlight/2022/07/21/mango-mania-the-history-and-culture-of-mangoes/
3. University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. (2022, October 26). Mango. Retrieved January 5, 2024, from https://www.uwsp.edu/sbcb/mango/
4. Mangoes - Real Food Encyclopedia - FoodPrint. (2023, December 14). FoodPrint. Retrieved January 5, 2024, from https://foodprint.org/real-food/mangoes/