WITH the fifth season of Fiji TV’s Taste of Paradise being planned, the growing local food movement is one of this year’s key food stories. The emergence of more locally grown variety of produce and small family eateries is not only good for farmers, but is giving rise to a new dining culture of appreciating more home-style cooked foods.
Social media sites, television shows and newspaper columns about food are providing new platforms for curious home cooks to learn from that previous generation did not have access to. You only have to go to Facebook sites such as Dom Samson’s Mai Kana page (37,000 members), Bula Kitchen (28,363 members) and Fiji Island Food (18,036 members) to see a new love of cooking is on the rise.
A certain IQ Active host is someone who especially makes my eyes and mouth salivate for his home cooked dishes when he posts food pictures from his Home Sweet Home collection. Jon Apted’s love of anything local, healthy and not from a factory is an inspiration to every Fijian home cook, aspiring young chef or Pacific Islander food lover.
Cast an eye down at the markets or roadside stalls and you’ll see the return of the delicious Fijian bush asparagus, duruka, and if you are quick you’ll see some farmers begin to bring the early crops of mango.
Like all food, I find its story and link to our history just as fascinating as different ways to cook with the produce, and mango has a deep relationship throughout humankind’s history.
The mango story
The mango has been known in India since very early times and we have been enjoying its delicious and aromatic sweetness for over 4000 years. It is referred to in Sanskrit literature as amra and is usually associated with a story of love.
The tropical fruit was unknown in biblical times and explains why it is not mentioned in the Bible. It was a seventh century Chinese traveller to India named Hwen Tsang, who was the first person to bring mango to the notice of people outside India.
The spread of Buddhism assisted in the distribution of mangoes in Southeast Asia. Buddhist monks took mango plants from India on voyages to Malaya and eastern Asia in the fourth and fifth centuries BCE.
Mangoes were carried to Africa during the sixteenth century and later found their way on board Portuguese ships to Brazil in the 1700s. Mexico acquired the mango in the nineteenth century, and it entered Florida in the US by 1833.
But how has this fruit of love managed to captivate people for thousands of years?
Fruit of gods
The tree is known to date back 4000 years in India and the fruit it bore, has been known as the “fruit of gods”.
The legend of the origin of a mango tree, symbolising eternal love, is mentioned in ancient Indian Sanskrit literature. It tells of a beautiful, golden radiant princess, the daughter of the sun god landing on earth. The king of the land instantly fell in love with her and desired to marry her.
However, a sorceress fell jealous of how the king was in love with her and turned her into ashes. From these ashes a huge tree with dark green leaves grew, which bore golden fruits like the radiance of the princess. As one of the fruits ripened and fell to earth, it instantly turned back into the same Princess Surya Bai. The king recognised her, and they got married.
Romantic link
Whether it is because of its heart shape, unique sweetness or its bright golden flesh, mangoes are associated with many stories of the heart that end in tragedy like a Romeo and Juliet play.
In the Philippines, the story of mango teaches a father the lessons and wishes of a daughter’s love — after she kills herself! Not wanting to be forced to marry by her father, his beautiful daughter, Aganhon, pleaded with him to cancel the engagement. He flatly refused and kept insisting his choice was the best.
On the day of the wedding, Aganhon was nowhere to be found. The bridal party searched high and low, until someone finally ventured into a nearby stream and stumbled upon the young bride’s motionless body, with a dagger stuck in her chest.
Stricken with grief and remorse, the father dreamt of his daughter on the night of her funeral. In the dream, Aganhon led her father to a tree that grew on the spot where they had found her body. The next morning he rushed over to the stream and found the same tree, its branches heavy with bright yellow fruits that were shaped like hearts.
He sampled one and found it to be as sweet and tender as the heart of the daughter whose feelings he callously disregarded. He called it “mangga”, which meant “heart-shaped” in their ancient Filipino tongue.
For a Fijian, the mango rekindles childhood fun, freedom and a time of reflection sitting under the shade of the mango tree, as the ripened fruit drops all around you.
When it’s mango season the endless abundance is a signal to get the mango recipes out and start preserving, drying, freezing, cooking or bottling them to enjoy out of season.
Indian families are clever to turn green mango in a snack with salt and chilli, or pickling them with mustard oil, chilli and garlic.
However you love eating mangoes, just eat more! If not for their nutritious vitamins and minerals, eat them for their external love.
* Lance Seeto is culinary ambassador for Fiji Airways and the Ministry of Industry, Trade & Tourism, and television host of “Taste of Paradise”.
