What’s your favourite mango? Mylapore fruit sellers share their picks

Alphonso and malgova too mainstream for you? Expand your horizons with some help from the fruit sellers of Mylapore market

Erode, 29/05/2018: Mangoes of different varieties started arriving in markets in large quantities in Erode in Tamil Nadu. PHOTO:M_GOVARTHAN

Ottu Pazham

M Uma’s eyes gleam like her two coin-sized nose-studs do under the street-light when she says with relish, “Maampazham…,” (mango).

The 60-year-old sells

vadu manga and mangoes in the summer and vegetables during the rest of the year at the Mylapore market. She seems distracted and mildly peeved with a haggling customer when we meet her, but mention mangos, and she smiles. “My favourite is

ottu pazham ,” she says. “It’s long and thin, and is also called

kili mooku maampazham (parrot-nosed mango).”

Uma says that the mango variety acquires a reddish tint towards the top portion once ripe. “It has to be slit length-wise into thin slices,” she explains, adding: “And has to be eaten whole, with the skin. The skin adds to the taste, actually.” Uma recalls living on just mangoes during the summer when she was younger. “My mother sold fruit and vegetables in this market and I sat with her all day,” she remembers. When it was mango season, she ate three to four

ottu pazham a day. “I can’t do that now,” she laughs. “I’m diabetic.”

Senthooram

A Muniamma has scaled walls of houses in the city with her girl-gang when she was young to steal mangoes. She’s fallen down, broken bones, suffered bruises... all for that one mango.

“Have you heard of what they say about stolen mangoes? That they’re tastier than the ones you pay for? I swear it’s true,” she laughs as she weighs avakkai mangoes for a customer. “We got caught several times and the tree owners were always kind. Some even invited us in for a snack,” she says.

The 52-year-old says she grew up surrounded by all kinds of mangoes. “I’ve been on the Mada Veedhi from the time I was five,” she says. The mango variety that’s closest to her heart is senthooram . “It’s small, round, and deep red,” she says. It’s an unwritten rule that some mangoes must be eaten whole, and senthooram is one of them. There’s a certain way to enjoy this fruit, according to Muniamma. “Hold it within your palm, bite away a small portion of the skin and keep sucking into it till you’ve polished off every bit of the flesh,” she explains. “The skin is sour,” warns Muniamma. “Discard it once you’ve eaten the fruit.” She adds that the flesh can be fibrous. “But I love it; it’s affordable — back then, a kilo was ₹5 or ₹10, now it’s around ₹40.”

Sakkarakatti

She’s surrounded by baby mangoes in March and April, and vegetables through the year, but K Amirtha, often dreams of that mango she ate many years ago. “It’s called sakkarakatti ,” she says. “It’s the sweetest mango I’ve ever had.” Amirtha says that she cannot afford to eat the variety often. “It costs around ₹250 to ₹300 at the Koyambedu market these days,” she says. “It’s tiny; its sweetness is beyond description. Onnu saapita, pathu saapitta maari .” (Eating one is equal to eating ten). The mango, owing to its size, has a tiny seed. “So you can eat it too; it’s a mere sliver.” Amirtha says that she’s seen older women sell it in villages in wicker baskets. “It’s a country variety,” she explains.

Amirtha is also fond of rasali mango. “It has a long, C-shape,” she explains. “The skin is thin, and I enjoy eating it too.”

Speaking of mangoes takes Amirtha back to her childhood days at her uncle’s farm in Gingee. “How many mangoes I’ve stolen!” she laughs. “We had no idea about what kind of mangoes they were. Once we plucked them, we hit them against a stone to break them open and devoured them.”