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How To Eat
a Mango - James
Clarke
South Africa exports a third of its mango crop; another
third is sold locally. - The Star
I know what happens to the third third. It escapes.
People peel mangoes and then - like soap in a hot
bath - they escape ones grasp and go shooting off, slithering
and sliding and glazing whole landscapes in a slimy
yellow film.
If there is one drawback to living in South Africa
it is the mango. The fruit even has its own website
but one thing this website cannot tell you is how to
eat a mango with decorum. Readers, over the years, have
tried to tell me it can be done. I have yet to see proven.
One reader showed me a specially designed mango fork
with which one harpoons the mango at its stalk end and
then, holding it firmly on your plate, you slice away
the peel. Then you slice the mango and eat it.
Easy peasy. I was impressed, at first. But when I asked
her how to get the messy remains off the fork she had
to take it to the kitchen and there she shook it as
one would shake off a determined fox terrier which has
you by the person.
The mango flew off the fork and slimed its way across
the kitchen floor.
An unseemly chase ensued, but it is easier to grasp
Einstein's theory of relativity than to grasp a peeled
mango. The chase went through the house and out into
the road. It was like watching The Monster from the
Planet Slime running amuck. Cars were doing four-wheel
drifts in its wake bouncing off each other.
Some restaurants actually serve mangoes but I have
yet to see anybody peel and eat one, flagrantly, in
public. I have stated heretofore (please find) that
anybody ordering a fresh mango in a restaurant should
be screened off from other patrons like a hospital patient
having something unspeakable done to him.
Waiters, preferably former wicket keepers, with abrasive
gloves should be deployed to try to catch any mobile
mangoes before they glaze the entire restaurant and
one has frantic diners, still holding on to their knives
and forks sliding about involuntarily stabbing each
other in their efforts to escape.
I am not saying mangoes are unhealthy. Each one contains
lashings of "antioxidants" which guard against
oxidantal death. And single mango will provide your
digestive tract with as much fibre as a front door mat.
As a journalist who has taken a blood oath to expose
untruths I must warn of a Mango Growers' Association
pamphlet which avers the fruit creates "no mess".
It errs.
According to the pamphlet, to eat a mango:
- Select a sharp knife and insert it into fruit until
you strike the pip.
- Cut around the fruit, either lengthways or widthwise.
- Using both hands, twist the mango in two - the
pip will separate from one half and remain lodged
in the other.
- Now simply scoop out the pip with a spoon.
"Simply"! Ha! Another "elegant way":
- Cut two thick slices, lengthways, off both sides
of an unpeeled mango.
- Using a sharp knife, cut diagonal lines through
the flesh down to the skin. Repeat in the opposite
direction to form a diamond or cube pattern.
- Now flip the slices inside out and eat with a fruit
knife and fork.
I rushed home with a fat mango determined to "flip
slices inside out".
(NOTE: As the scenes that followed might offend sensitive
readers, the rest of this columns has been excised -
Editor.)
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