Over the weekend I had a house guest and while out at the market they decided to pick up some mangoes for me knowing my love for this divine fruit. They were the perfect colour, smell and firmness so I savoured them until that perfect moment and then prepared for the experience. NO! It tasted more like a tamarind than a mango. I was thoroughly disappointed at this false advertising.
I started to think and realized that I could remember all the great mango experiences in my life. Please tell me I am normal and everyone has their greatest fruit moments memorized. I remember the mango I had coming home from school when I was about 10 yrs old that I saved for a few days and then dropped when I was about to eat it. There were the giant mangoes that came from the mini tree of a family friend. There were the mini mangoes from the lady in my mum’s church choir that I could put all in my mouth at once. I remembered staying in the Dominican Republic for ten days and looking forward to the mangoes at the buffet at breakfast each morning. Then there is the pepper mango that I always buy at the airport in Trinidad and the mango I bought from an old woman in the hills in St. Lucia while driving to the sulphur springs. There was the mango at breakfast at my hotel on a recent trip to St. Vincent and I cannot leave out the green mango salad at the Thai restaurant on Bloor + Lansdowne.
Yes, the only thing I love more than a beautiful wedding is a delicious mango. It is an intense love affair that has been going on even before I knew what love was. My big challenge is how to combine these two passions. Mango wedding cake anyone?