It was a night of a riotous, unrestrained celebration of mango eating. I have never had more fun eating mangoes than that summer of 1984 in Kent, England. My cousin, Alqama, doing his PhD in International Relations, had invited the entire IR department of the University of Kent to dinner. The menu was simple, but was it sane? Delicious Sindhi Chicken biryani followed by juicy mangoes freshly arrived from Pakistan. Could this elite band of sober, sedate and highly sophisticated English men and women be expected to indulge in the ludicrous process of mango eating?
The first session moved along smoothly as expected. The hitches, glitches and snags were all anticipated in the second half of the meal. As the first-half of the meal came to an end, Alqama proceeded to explain the rules of engagement for the final half of the meal. “Ladies and gentlemen, these are mangoes. If subcontinental legend is to be believed, it is the fruit of the gods. Man is lucky to have a taste of it. No fruit is as sweet and fragrant, as full of juice, and as wonderfully tropical-tasting as a good, ripe mango. Now here are the rules. You can either eat it with a fork and knife or you can eat it the way it is to be had — with your bare hands. But remember the first option is only for those who wish to eat not more than one mango. If you want to eat to your heart’s content, you must resort to the second option.”
This speech delivered to a group of Cambridge and Oxford scholars may seem a little odd to people who do not know Alqama. But to those who know him, this spirit of the game thrown into a party is a classic trick of his, to make the party and experience memorable.
Apart from an elderly gentleman called Dr Groom, who within a flash had his sleeves up and hands and fingers dug deep into the mango flesh, Pakistani style, the others started hesitantly with forks and knifes. But then within five minutes and precisely after finishing one mango, the entire group of academies were eating the irresistible mangoes like children, with bare hands, caring not a hoot about the well-known English etiquette. All everybody cared in the world about the next hour or so were mangoes and more mangoes. I revelled to my hearts content in the joys of eating mangoes with people who had been quick to appreciate the magic of mangoes.
Later, Alqama confided that he had not imagined in his wildest dreams that mangoes would beguile the English palate to such a frenzy of excitement that they would forget their famous table manners to partake of the pleasures of mango eating. A while ago, one of his Indian friends had invited a group of young London men and women to a Persian restaurant where true to eastern customs, food had to be eaten sitting on the floor. Despite their best efforts, the group of European and English men and women — mostly in miniskirts — had been totally incapable of eating the food eastern style and the whole episode had been a resounding fiasco. What the grand Persian food of the Shahs had failed to do, the king of fruits, the mango, had done — taught westerners the art of eating the eastern way.
Interestingly enough, while surfing the Net, I discovered that at least there is one person in the West who has really developed a taste for mangoes, because he believes that the best way to eat mangoes is to leave aside the prescribed table manners while eating this delicious fruit. Sharing his personal experience with other Americans, he says that if you really want to enjoy mangoes, just put on your swimsuit, grab a towel, go outside in the sun and eat mangoes. According to him, the other method of enjoying mangoes, which he thinks is the best, is to remove the strip of skin around it, pick it up with your fingers and stand over the sink in your kitchen to enjoy this irresistible fruit. His research reveals that mangoes are a healthy way to achieve your goal of five fruits and vegetables a day, because it is rich in vitamins A, C and D. Whenever I visit Caribbean, one of the first things I do is go out and look for mangoes. A mango can be a mess to eat, but who cares, he adds.
I am sure all those present at the dinner must now be enjoying the mangoes the way Alqama taught them. I am pretty sure that if we can effectively publicize the art of enjoying mangoes in the US and the UK, we can increase our export five times over. If you eat it with your bare hands, you can safely eat more than five mangoes at a time. So with simple arithmetic, you can understand how we can increase our exports. During the fiscal year 2002-2003, a total of 58,844 tons of mangoes were exported amounting to $17.6 million to 14 countries, which did not include the US.
Now is the time to publicise the art of eating mangoes in the West through our TV channels. In Pakistan, mango season starts in mid-May, when the Indian Alfonso mangoes comes to an end. From now onwards, the playing field remains open for better quality Pakistani mangoes until mid-October. So let us teach them the most appropriate way to eat mangoes and then see how the mango magic works.
It was a night of a riotous, unrestrained celebration of mango eating. I have never had more fun eating mangoes than that summer of 1984 in Kent, England. My cousin, Alqama, doing his PhD in International Relations, had invited the entire IR department of the University of Kent to dinner. The menu was simple, but was it sane? Delicious Sindhi Chicken biryani followed by juicy mangoes freshly arrived from Pakistan. Could this elite band of sober, sedate and highly sophisticated English men and women be expected to indulge in the ludicrous process of mango eating?
