Food: Honey

Eating the honey off the palm of the hand, or the spoon, or a cup

Big 'ol bucket of honey. And you better believe there are a ton of bees and wax in there .

 

In many rural areas and within traditional cultures, honey is still hugely valued. Wild honey is commonly foraged in most of Tanzania and among one of the tribes that we work with it is still used as part of the dowry offering in marriage. It is also used to pay fines within the culture (for various cultural transgressions), as a bargaining item in exchange for livestock, as well as being a fixture at cultural events such as funerals or weddings. As with many cultures around the world, it is also fermented to make a honey wine but it is also commonly consumed raw. And when I say consumed raw, I mean, palmed like a bear and licked clean. I recently found myself at a homestead that had recently procured a few kilograms of honey. 

I was invited inside due to the recent arrival of a couple of literal buckets of honey. My host was excited to invite me in to join the consumption. I could not ascertain for which reason the honey was procured but the mood was cheerful. I was surprised at the huge bucket of honey, full of debris such as wax, bark, and dead bees. But I was truly shocked at the rate of consumption which I observed; young men were scooping huge portions of honey into their palms and then slurping it up before dishing out more which resulted in something I could only accurately call a feeding frenzy. I was given a small bowl with an enormous amount of honey, probably at least a half kilogram (1 lb.). Although I do enjoy honey I almost always consume it as a spread on toast. I have been known to enjoy a spoonful here and there but I am certainly not accustomed to eating such a large volume in one sitting. 

Luckily I have more than enough experience in this type of situation. As a result of living and traveling in several different countries across the world, I have learned to tell the difference between a situation with escape possibilities and an inescapable situation. If provided with coagulated goats blood garnished with cilantro (as the Mapuche in Chile offered me) or the eye of a steamed fish (as is customary in China for the guest of honor to begin with to signal the beginning of a feast) I've known that must suck it up in front of the huge crowd and do my best to consume with a smile on my face. If faced with a grisly piece of fat from a day old un-refrigerated piece of meat in a homestead, I can usually locate a hungry dog or pawn it off to a willing child. In this case I knew I had to consume a fair bit of honey but I was pleased that when I informed my host that I was satiated, he gladly yanked the bowl from my hand and slurped down the remains.

One of the most common ways to forage for honey is to look for it in Baobab trees. Honeybees are fond of the crevices in the huge trees. Honey hunters tend to reuse specific trees and it's not uncommon to find pegs riddling the trunks of the Baobab trees.

A typical Baobab tree with climbing pegs to collect honey

This story actually took place in October 2017 but I was recently perusing some old photos and I remembered it.

Blue collar chicken

 

Classic relatively make shift fried chicken stand

 

Cooked food availability can reveal a lot about a countries general economy. One example is examining the economics of chicken in a small village in Rufiji. There are several food options available in the village but only one specialized fried chicken place. They have a basic set up with two massive wok style charcoal powered frying station, a "display case", and then a food prep and serving area. They fry a bunch of chips before the chicken and put them in the display box. They also have the chickens, which are not local but rather the kigeni (foreign) type, which is a treat. 

The breast is the most expensive at 2,500 tsh ($1.07) a piece. Next comes the leg and thigh at 2,000 tsh (86 cents) a piece. The neck is pre-fried due to the demand. The neck is 800 tsh (34 cents) while the head and feet are combined into a two-for-one 500 tsh (21 cents). Take a closer look at how they package the head and feet combo; gnarly! I spent a significant amount of time loitering around this stand over the course of a week. I observed the head/feet combos sell out the fastest, followed by the neck. There are a few customers that order the larger pieces, mainly people ordering them from their shop and having a runner deliver the food to them.

The place is not the most hygienic with all the mixing of the raw meat with the prepared meat. This is less of an issue for the breast and thigh as they are prepared immediately on a piece of wood. It's difficult for a country like Tanzania to balance regulation and enterprise as most of these businesses have very little capital and extremely thin margins. There are also more permanent structures and restaurants that also serve fried chicken though there is also no promise of hygiene standards being enforced!

Full display of the product. Note the piece of wood in the upper left corner is used as a cutting board.

A little grotesque how they package the feet and head but it does seem practical.

Local fruit

I've written about it before(one and two) but I absolutely love the ability to buy fruit and other foods on the street here in Tanzania. It's cheap, cut to eat, and there is often a decent variety available. I recently found myself in a village for a week and enjoyed the local services. 

Apart from the actual consumption, I enjoy the vibe at the fruit stand as well. I usually take a seat and eat a few oranges, maybe a piece of pineapple. It's nice to chat with the fruit vendors as well as the customers that come for a piece. Although there are a fair amount of processed food and candies, I appreciate the fact that the working class and average person will still prefer to purchase a fresh piece of fruit. It's also great that it is affordable making the decision easier.

Piece of roasted corn 500tsh (21 cents). A piece of roasted corn is a popular

Loaded fruit stand.

Each slice is 200 tsh (8.6 cents)

A quarter is 2500 tsh ($1.07) and a half chicken is 5000 tsh ($2.14)

200 tsh (8.6 cents)

Flora and Fauna & Food: Tamarind Tree

Fruit of the tree

One of my favorite fruits to forage while in the field is the fruit from the Tamarind tree. Not only is the fruit delicious but the tree is typically large and provides great shade. It also has a long fruiting period which means that you can depend on gathering the fruit for an extended period of time, not just the usual glut of fruits from most trees.

The fruit is a curved lumpy brown pod that has a very brittle shell. If you aren't careful while removing, it has a tendency to crack and become difficult to remove from the sticky innards. When removed the black seed is revealed, covered in a sticky and sour pulp. You can pop the seeds into your mouth and suck on the seeds until all the pulp is removed, then spit out the shiny hard seed. You can also make juice from tamarind, as well as paste to use in cooking.

I've only seen locals eat it straight from the fruit and for whatever reason it is mostly young children that consume it. We've made juice a few times though it's good to balance it with some sugar or honey. I do love to eat the fruit straight from the seed but it tends to burn my mouth if I have too much!

Nice specimen

Pods on the tree

Food: Snot Apple (azanza garckeana)

Snot apple!

While in the field the other week, our team needed to find water. We made our way to a dried up river bed and dug shallow holes in the sand to access water. Along the river there was a medium-size tree that our local team immediately identified as having edible fruit. They sent the youngest member to gather some of the fruits, at which point I got quite excited at the prospect of trying a new fruit.

The fruit of the not so flatteringly named, “Snot Apple (Azanza Garckeana)” is strange to me in a few ways. First, the skin does not look inviting but the fruit is consumed with no peeling. Second, the texture has an odd mix of soft innards and a kind of chewy and tough skin. Third, the flavor is subtle at first and then tastes like a slightly watered down honey. You end up chewing on it like sugar cane; swallowing the liquid and spitting out the skin and innards. The fruit gets its name from the texture, which many people describe a slimy.

Overall the fruit was initially foreign to my taste and consumption but the flavor is quite nice and certainly a good find while navigating around the bush. I'm not sure if I would buy it in town but anytime I see a fruiting tree, I'll be more than happy to get some fruits!

Food: Fruit from Baobab Tree

Seed pod, exposed seeds, a few seeds that have been sucked dry, and a phone for scale. 

I've already written about the iconic Baobab tree but one thing I overlooked was the fruit. I had tried the juice made from the fruit and I have seen the seeds both on the tree and on the ground but I had never actually thought about eating the seed.

The area I am living has a large amount of Baobab trees and thus some of our local staff have recently shown us how to consume the fruit. The Baobab tree has a large, woody, oval pod that is covered with fine velvety hairs. It can be over 20cm long and is quite strong so to open it you can step on it with quite some force. Inside are numerous black seeds that are embedded in an off-white, crumbly pulp that is divided into sections with some fibrous red hairs. Separating the seeds is relatively easy and you can pop them in your mouth and suck on them to get a lightly tart taste reminiscent of something rich in vitamin C (which it is). It leaves a strange texture in your mouth, a kind of “fuzziness” that I find challenging to describe, kind of chalky and gritty. I think it's one of those foods that leaves a funny feeling that is remedied by eating more of it, thus creating a cycle.

You can also make juice by simply soaking the seeds in the water overnight and filtering the seeds out, adding sugar to taste. The fruit is apparently very high in vitamin C and locally it is believed that it helps to reduce thirst when out in the bush. There is a caveat to this local belief though; I find it DOES reduce thirst by generating more saliva, but this actually then leads to me being more dehydrated overall. Still, I'm not sure it will be a matter of life and death so I'm always pleased to pop a few seeds!

Clear look of the insides

Food: Straight from the Cow

Bringing the milk to a boil. Yes, we have a local pot, don't judge. 

We recently moved to a new place and it is conveniently located across the street from a "milk dealer". Kilimanjaro has a rich tradition of cattle-raising, both in the dominant tribe of the Chagga and the Maasai. Milk is extremely common in the frequent and ubiquitous chai, cheese is available at a reasonable price, and even cheese cake is on the menu at some coffee shops.

At 7AM and 7PM each day, the residential house across the street has a small queue of people waiting for milk. The milk comes from a rural area just outside of town ensuring the deliveries are always fresh The milk is 1,200 TZS ($0.65) per liter, a very affordable price.

On occasion we'll drink it raw with our coffee but the majority of the time we bring it to a boil and then let it cool before bottling it and putting it in the fridge. We also use it to make yogurt to add to our smoothies, quite a treat!

The vast majority of developing countries I've spent time in do not have a culinary tradition of dairy, especially cows milk. Being a native of Wisconsin, I appreciate being back in a place with rich dairy!

Pouring the milk into the container. 

Ready to drink!

Food: Making Juice

Pineapple, papaya, and mangoes in the fridge. 

One of my favorite parts of mango season is making juice. Since mango trees tend to be very large and bear hundreds of fruits, there is inevitably a time when mangoes are literally left to rot on the ground. An overripe mango isn't that great when peeled and eaten raw, but when mixed with some other fruit and turned into juice...well, it can be quite a delicacy.

Juicing is overall a pretty simple activity. All you need is fruit, a blender, a strainer, and some water. Cut up the fruit, mix it in a blender while adding water to adjust for whatever consistency you prefer. Strain it, then, wallah, put in a container and you've got your homemade juice. Some people like to add sugar but I find it unnecessary when using sweet fruits and I don't usually venture out into the more exotic juices like avocado. 

Although you can make juices with a wide variety of fruits, I find that mango season is the best time as mangoes not only have a lot of flavor but also a lot of body to fill out a juice. Of course, anything that is in season and in overabundance may find its way to my blender!

The most challenging thing when making juice is the mess that remains. An ant bonanza typically follows a juicing session.  

Straining the mango and passion fruit. 

Passionfruit and mango litter our compost bucket. 

Ana pours the juice into bottles. 

Delicious final product. 

Food: Crickets

Definitely a local storage technique. 

Packed in there tight. 

Crickets in hand

I went to visit my friend the other day and she had an unusual snack for me to try. She is from Mwanza, a region in the west of Tanzania with a distinct culture than the Chagga and others of Kilimanjaro Region. She said she recently had some stuff sent to her from her aunt and the local treat was included.

The crickets were prepared by smoking them, no additives necessary! I'd eaten crickets on one occasion before (in Cambodia) though they were sauteed in a pan with salt. These crickets were quite large and as a result a lot more "flavorful" than the crickets I have eaten before. The taste was not bad and I imagined if most people had a beer to go with them, most would find it enjoyable.

I have no issues eating insects; in fact they are a great protein source and in this day and age of using exceedingly more resources raising animals for consumption, it's even an ethical meal! Unfortunately, the cricket industry is not very developed in this region, so I guess I'll have to wait for care packages from Mwanza!

Fruit season: Pineapple and Mango

One of my absolute favorite things about living in the tropics is the presence of tropical fruit. Not only are there exotic fresh fruits available year round but there you also feel the rhythm of the seasons. As a result of living in a medium sized hub city, most of the fruits are available year round though if they are out of season they are costly in comparison to seasonal fruit. So every once in a while I'll buy a pineapple out of season but the chances that it is low quality, along with the price, discourage such practices to become regular.

Some fruits are available pretty much year round, like papaya and bananas. However, most are seasonal like oranges, pineapple, mangoes, watermelon, and passion fruit. At the peak of the seasons the fruits are ridiculously cheap. For example, out of season a single orange may cost 300 TZS ($0.17). But during peak season most vendors won't even sell individual oranges, though if they do they are 100 TZS ($0.06). Most will persuade you to buy in bulk and if you buy around 20 you will get them for 1000 TZS ($0.60). These seasons have a lot of overlap in the calendar year and there always seems to be something available.

Another sign of the season is the presence of fruit carts on the streets as well as mobile vendors. Oranges and pineapples are particularly popular items to sell like this. Customers can either buy in bulk, buy individually, and even have pre-cut pieces available for sale. The carts seem to be ubiquitous so you don't have to look hard to find a juicy piece of pineapple.

Pineapple cart. The plastic bin contains already sliced pineapple. 

More fruit carts. 

Now we are enjoying a boon in pineapple. From about the beginning of November for another month or so pineapples will be cheap and delicious. As stated earlier, the biggest risk with buying out of season is that you will get a piece of fruit that has been ripened off the vine and probably came from another region in Tanzania. The vast majority of locals find purchasing fruit out of season to be a huge waste of money and impractical so vendors often face longer turnover. But now in the height of the season I can be nearly guaranteed I will get a great pineapple!

Unfortunately the markets here don't seem to have a whole lot of variety of pineapples. There are maybe three or four different types that I see but what lacks in diversity is made up in quality. Being a fruit I haven't grown up with, it's taken some years to learn how to identify a pineapple ripe, one ready for tomorrow, or one that needs to sit for some days. It's also taken a while to get the cutting technique down though if you're inexperienced you can always buy pre-cut pieces. The "lazy mans" method is cutting the pineapple in half and just scooping it with a spoon.

Awesome fruit cart with a variety of mangoes, pineapple, watermelon, papaya, oranges and bananas. 

Bounty from the market, including a papaya bigger than your head. 

Fruit vendor at a bus rest stop. 

Food: Oranges

Baskets of oranges in the market. 

As the rainy season comes to an end, many fruits and vegetables are available in great quantities and oranges have got to be my current favorite. Oranges are best grown in places with a moderate climate (20-28C/68-80F) with plenty of sun and low rainfall, though as they reach the late stages of maturity they need increased water. At the end of the rains they're full of juice and abundant in the markets and among hawkers in the street. I prefer to buy my oranges in the market from a seller that specializes in oranges, most commonly having a push cart or a gigantic sack full of oranges.

Three unpeeled oranges and one ready for consumption. 

Much like bananas, oranges here in Tanzania are a different variety than what you may be accustomed to at home. While researching the type of orange here I found a website with a wealth information on different varieties. I'm not sure which variety (I think African Sour Orange) are most common here but I've eaten a similar variety of oranges in Jamaica and West Africa. They actually have more of a yellow appearance (both inside and outside) than the traditional orange. The rind is very thick and best cut with a knife as opposed to peeling by hand. This is because the rind gives off a cloud of citrus juice when peeled which can cause irritation for both the skin and eyes. There are many ways to peel an orange from the corkscrew method (see above), vertical method (see below) and any other way you can think of while using a knife.

Orange peeled vertically with the very top cut off for the juice-box effect. 

Even after peeling, there are a lot of different ways consume the orange. You can cut off the very top and squeeze the oranges like a juice-box (see above). This method provides more juice and less flesh and also helps to filter out the numerous seeds found in the variety. Alternatively you can cut directly in the middle and scrape out the orange using your front teeth to scoop the flesh out. Often times people will cut at about the 60% line to avoid running the knife through the seeds and thus spilling some of the bitter taste held within the seeds.

Despite the name, I wouldn't describe the oranges as sour though they aren't as sweet as types most commonly available in Europe and America. Right now they are extremely cheap; you can get about 20 for $1.00. As you can imagine, I have been eating as many oranges as possible during the good times! 

Food: Corn (mahindi)

Corn lady preps a piece for me by dipping half a lime in spices and then squeezing/wiping the mix onto the corn.

One of the easiest and most widely available snacks this time of year is corn (mahindi). Only needing a simple setup, vendors can easily set up shop, roast a couple of ears of corn, and make a nice profit charging 300-800 TZS ($0.17-0.50).

The corn here is a variety of maize that is much less sweet than the corn most widely available in America. However, it is grown nearly everywhere, from large scale agriculture fields to in peoples backyards, and is typically covered in a mix of spices, salt and lime giving it a bit of flavor. It is served in a piece of the husk to keep your hands clean and protected from hot pieces.

Now that we're nearing the end of the rainy season corn is widely available. People also use corn to make a variety of local foods including the most popular starch ugali and the hearty makande. Luckily, if you can't be bothered to prepare and process the corn in such an intricate way, you can always just roast it!

Cooking tool: Mbuzi ya nazi

Mbuzi ya nazi

Many cultures located in the tropics often cook their rice with coconut. This can be a laborious process as you must husk the exterior, open and remove the coconut from the shell, then finally grate and extract the flavor from the flesh.

For those of us from the temperate world, the coconut in itself is a mysterious fruit, probably most commonly seen on a beach resort hosting a tropical fruit drink. They are more of a novelty in American supermarkets and certainly not used to the extent of those in the tropics. I was first properly introduced to coconuts in Jamaica where they enjoy drinking the sweet juice from the immature coconuts (jellys) as well as grating "fit" coconuts for the staple of "rice and peas". Due to my adequate climbing skills, I was easily able to trade coconuts for cooking lessons and I have Mama Marva to thank for teaching me how to properly husk, grate and prepare coconuts.

An awesome hide-away mbuzi ya nazi. Doubles as a small table.

Tanzanians equally use coconuts in their preparation of rice. I was quite pleased when one of my friends wanted to come over to show us how to make a local dish though she was disappointed when we didn't have a mbuzi ya nazi. Literally the "goat of coconut", mbuzi ya nazi is a simple tool used to simultaneously remove and grate the coconut from its shell. After breaking open the coconut (in a method which I refer to as "monkey style" aka smashing it on a rock) you simply sit on the stool and scrape the coconut over the sharp metal piece attached to the stool. Women sit sideways while men can straddle the stool (though you won't see many men rushing to grate coconut).

A plate catches the grated coconut. 

I had seen this style of bench before in Nigeria (see picture below) which is a simple design and folds up quite nicely to save space.

A Nigerian Chief relaxes on his chair and enjoys a cigeratte. 

After some initial adjustments and the natural resistance one has when trying a new technique for something in which one is already proficient with a different methodology, I began to fall in love with the mbuzi ya nazi. It was so easy to use and saved so much time and labor. And best of all, it is simple and combined with another functional tool (a stool)!

Food: Ugali

Ugali with beans and greens, a classic.

The main starch consumed in northern Tanzania is ugali. Ugali consists of maize flour (cornflower) cooked with water until it has a thick dough-like consistency. It's eaten with your hands and is usually rolled into a bite size piece and mixed with a stew or beans. It's very similar to some other African starch staples (Garri in Nigeria, Fufu in Ghana, Posho in Uganda) in that it's a thick rather tasteless clump of starch. It's available in almost every small cookery, restaurant and social gatherings that present food like weddings or funerals.

Nice piece of ugali. 

A beginner ugali eater is highly obvious and very messy so it's an important skill to learn. Because you eat it with your hand it is widely accepted that you need to wash your hands before eating, though this doesn't always mean with soap, especially in rural areas. It's always a conundrum when offered food in an area like that, do you skip washing your hand (cultural inappropriate, risk of germs on hands) or do you put your hand in the basin of water that four people had previously rinsed their hands in? And might I add, four people that probably have a higher probability of carrying something that will cause you to have diarrhea for two days straight? Sometimes you get lucky and someone pours water from a jug into a basin allowing you to rinse your hands, and sometimes you're even luckier and there is soap to accompany you.

I thought it was interesting that all these regions had a similar preparation and style of a starch with varying core ingredients (yam, maize, cassava). I found myself wondering about the pre-colonial foods and found this interesting tidbit on this extremely informative website about African food:

Before the European colonization of Africa and intercontinental trade, the staples of the African diet were rice, sorghum, millet, barley and lentils. Starting around 200 to 300 AD the Arabs brought dried fruits, rice, mangoes, citrus, black pepper, ginger and other spices by way of trans-Saharan camel caravans. By 500 AD traders introduced bananas and coconuts from Malaysia. Muslim influence began around 700 AD and spread rapidly throughout the continent. For hundreds of years there was an Indian Ocean slave trade when Muslim Arabs and Iranians traded goods for slaves. By the 15th century, the Europeans arrived and started colonizing Africa. The colonies of France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are gone but their influence on local cuisines remains.

Africa has five culinary/geographical regions (not geo-political areas) that derived variations of cuisine depending on their contact with the rest of the world. The regions are Ethiopia, West Africa, East Africa, Portuguese Africa and South Africa.

Many of the foods we eat everyday originated in Africa. Wheat, barley, oats, millet, Blackeye peas, sorghum, tamarind (part of Worcestershire sauce), okra, yams (not sweet potatoes), watermelon, cantaloupe, sesame, cumin and sugar beets all originated in Africa.

These staple starches like ugali are eaten by literally everyone because they are grown by everyone in rural areas. It's common to see people eating ugali twice a day, every day. In Nigeria people would have a garri porridge for breakfast with proper garri for lunch and dinner. Most things are boiled since oil is very expensive and also because people cook over an open fire. Because the goal is to serve many people and get full, repetition of foods is not really an issue.  People eat what is in season and what they can afford, hence the ubiquity and popularity of these starches. Rice has become more popular as trade increases and most rural areas consider it a delicacy reserved for special occasions.

It's something we have really lost in America when thinking of our current disconnect with growing and consuming food. I'm not even sure what I would say my staple starch was growing up..bleached wheat flour maybe? And although I'd probably seen a wheat field I had absolutely no idea how to process it from the raw material to the wheat flour until I looked it up out of curiosity at an adult age. Would we even know where to begin if we had to harvest our maize crop and turn it into a flour? And on top of all this, when we finally process it to a starch, we would realize that we all had forgotten how to eat with our hands.  

Food: Chipsi Mayai

Basic chips mayai. 

Literally meaning "chips eggs", chipsi (commonly shortened to just 'chips') mayai is one of my absolute favorite Tanzanian foods. More considered to be a snack, chips mayai is ubiquitous in Tanzania, found in eating establishments from proper restaurants to a woman on the side of the road with an open fire and a pan.

Chips mayai getting cooked on a basic setup.  

In its most simple form it is chips (french fries) mixed in with egg to make a kind of french fry omelette. The chips are usually prepared in the morning with huge buckets of potatoes getting filled with potatoes to be fried. Although it seems like it would be a breakfast food, due to the preparation of the potatoes it's usually not consumed in the morning, though vendors frequently used day (or multi-day) old chips that are displayed in a box.

I haven't met a Tanzanian that doesn't like chips mayai and it's a favorite among foreign expats. It certainly follows the unfortunate dietary rule of, "the more delicious it is, the more unhealthy it is". The chips are obviously fried and then when the egg is added an additional pool of oil is added. They usually drain the excess oil by holding a pan over the top and tilting it to the side.

The chipsmayai is usually served with a bit of greens such as a few slices of cucumber. It is almost always served with tomato sauce and chili sauce. The tomato sauce is like ketchup, but unlike most westerners conceptions about a singular style of ketchup, the tomato sauce here is often homemade, as well as the chili sauce. It can be eaten with toothpicks, fork , or your hands and it's a great food to enjoy with a cold beer in the evening.

Chips mayai with mishikaki (shishkebab). If you put the mishikaki in the chips mayai, it becomes a zege (cement). 

Food: Mangoes

The best piece of advice I can give a traveler planning a trip to a tropical country is if at all possible, make sure your trip is during mango season. This typically falls just before the rainy season and mangoes are so abundant they are literally rotting on the ground. They come as small as the size of a small orange, and some are larger than a grapefruit. If you are unfamiliar with eating them they can be a bit messy at first, but well worth it.

Mango trees provide shade to villagers in Uganda. 

Mangoes are native to India and Southeast Asia. There are a myriad of varieties and trees can be 120+ ft tall, or short stout trees providing shade.  Cultivars have the colors of yellow, orange, red or green, and contain a single flat, oblong pit that is often fibrous on the surface. Don't be fooled by attempting to judge the ripeness of mango by the color as they can often be unrelated. The pulp can range from stringy to extremely tender. For stringy mangoes you can't always be carrying floss, so people often use a handkerchief to pull the pulp out from between teeth.

Nice mango cross-section. 

Where I'm from we only import mangoes, so I'd only seen maybe two or three varieties before moving to the tropics. In fact, the variety "Tommy Atkins" is the most imported variety not due to it's taste, rather it's long shelf life and resistance to picking up bruises during shipping. It's widely acknowledged to be an "average" variety when judged on the merits of its taste, but the other factors have a greater influence on which mangoes reach supermarkets in the US and UK (Tommy Atkins comprise 80% of mango imports in the US and UK). Needless to say, I was astounded when I first encountered mangoes in the tropics. There were varieties that were sweet, creamy, tart; some were even spicy. Mango trees are ubiquitous in most tropical countries and readily available during the few months when they are ripe. As mentioned earlier, they literally rot on the ground as not even the most ardent mango consumer can keep up with the biggest trees.

Bats, birds and other animals also share the taste for mangoes. Although they are best when ripened on the tree, they can be picked (usually by throwing stones or using a long stick with a v-shaped notch on the end) and ripened off the tree. There are also worms that love to eat mangoes and people will often complain when a tree is infested. In Jamaica they told me not to mind and that's why it's always best to "eat mangoes at night". However, not everyone likes to eat mangoes at night, which leads to a booming market for mangoes, especially the varieties that are sweet, tender, and worm-free.

Mangoes can be eaten with out a knife, something that can't be said for other delicious tropical fruits like the pineapple and jackfruit. If you're going to get down and dirty, you've still gotta be careful to avoid the sap from the tree; mangoes belong to the same family as poison ivy. Like poison ivy (and poison oak) mangoes contain urushiol, an oily allergen that causes the painful reaction that you've hopefully never experienced first hand. Some mangoes have an entirely different method for consumption; some are good to pound in your fist and soften, then open a small patch of skin to drink like a juice.

One of the most interesting things with mangoes it the way it sharply defines the lower-income class. I've observed that the lower-income class never purchases mangoes and find it extravagant to buy something that is available for free. I assume most of you would reach for your wallet if I asked you if you'd like a free stringy mango that doesn't have much taste, or pay 50 cents and have a sweet and tender mango. I am ashamed to say it, but I am a bit of a mango snob these days. I wouldn't consider myself a spendthrift but as a result of not having a mango tree in my yard and having some years of mango experience, I want to make sure I'm getting a delicious mango and find that most yard varieties are too stringy. Even still, a stringy mango can still make some delicious mango juice!