Bite it

The mango must be approached with the reverence due to a fruit with a hallowed genealogy. Eating a mango calls for rituals comparable to the savouring of fine wines at a tasting event
Ratna Raman Delhi

It is that time of the year again. The heat grows and ripens, and Delhi streets in the daytime are a metallic yellow eclipsing the balmy sunshine of the flowering laburnums. When the mercury rises over 40 degrees centigrade, Delhi's mosquitoes perish, freeing the MCD to extend its listless apathy elsewhere. Subsequently, malaria-free Dilliwallahs celebrate being alive in the summer and feast upon the succulent fruit that the hot season teases into life. There are musk melons, zardas, cantaloupes, and yellow, green and striated watermelons; but the fruit that commands unflagging anticipation is the mango. 

Newspapers announce mango festivals in watering holes ranging from the much vaunted Aman Resorts and The Manor to niche bakeries and eateries. Mangoes breathe life and meaning into the summer season. Mango ice cream and kulfi remain perennial favourites.  The avant garde are spoilt for choice with desserts such as mango soufflés, mango cheesecake, plain mango cakes, mango yoghurt, mango jellies, jujubes, sandwiches and more.  Mango jam, mango toffee, mango burfee, halwa, kheer, mangoes in cream, are regular household visitors. Srikhand, once indigenous to Maharashtra, is now plotted on the national gastronomic map. A dessert from South-East Asia, hot sticky rice cooked with ripe mangoes and coconut milk is the current flavour of the season. 

Meanwhile, one cannot overlook the tasteful triumvirate of aam papad (dehydrated, juicy slabs of mango pulp, both sweet and sour and all time favourite),  amchur (dried and powdered raw mango, staple kitchen condiment used to banish blandness forever) and chooran (made with raw mango and cumin, a delicious after-food digestive, tucked into by all age groups).

The mango exists in solid state in nature but human genius transforms it into liquid form. Aamras from Gujarat, an amazing pulped syrup when poured into little katoris works as an accompaniment to meals and also doubles up as dessert. The Bengalis excel with an incredible sweet mango chutney paired with delicate loochis that puts the puri-halwa combo at a disadvantage. They also serve a delicious thin mango rasa replete with raw mango chunks that can be guzzled in endless cupfuls, irrespective of whether food is to follow or not. 

The old stalwarts, Noga and Kissan, make squashes, crushes and jellies, while Maaza mango, with its raga 'aamsutra', plies the liquid market with Real, Parle and Slice, selling thick syrupy juices in tetrapack, plastic and glass. Utility stores bring up the rear with large plastic cans of imported mango juice. 

Nevertheless, mango milk shake, sold at fruit-juice shops dotting street corners from Shahadra to Sarojini Nagar and from Patel Nagar to Patparganj in Delhi dominates beverage bestseller charts from March to September. This blend comprising fruit of uncertain pedigree, doubtful ice, questionable flavour and colouring, lethal white sugar and fresh milk is one of the most exciting encounters one can ever have with the mango. For those who are not catholic about their intake, aam doodh can be rustled up at home with no additives and even less sugar.