Do you know there is a National Mango Day? Me neither. Well there is and it happens to be 22 July. So this is the day to celebrate the luscious, sweet, golden goodness of the King of Fruit. So while people celebrated their fave fruit, we also got to learn some interesting facts about mangoes.
India is the world's largest producer of mangoes and has over 1,500 varieties of the fruit cultivated in the country.
22 July is National Mango Day and mango lovers said Happy #NationalMangoDay
We have regional varieties such as Alphonso and Kesar, Baiganpalli, Dusheri, Langda, Safeda and many others. Everyone has a favourite.
Other countries grow mangoes as well. There are Indian cultivators who also grow some of these exotic varieties; in some cases very exotic indeed.
In UP’s Saharanpur, one mango tree with 121 types of fruit had made headlines recently.
It is not unusual for homes in the south to have mango trees in the yard. However, this Kerala village has 208 varieties. This is now an ‘Indigenous Mango Heritage Area’ for mango lovers to unite.
People shared their own variations on the mango theme – smoothies, shakes, ice creams and more.
A mango martini sounds interesting.
Of course it was asked: how do you like to eat your mango: cut, pulped, or made into a dessert?
My favourite way to have mangoes is pulped (good old Gujarati kairi no ras) with poori or chopped into little bits with vanilla ice cream.
There are many different ways to eat a mango – including cooking ripe alphonso with meat – as my mother sacrilegiously would do.
While many celebrated their fave fruit, others like me mourned the fact that the mango season will soon end.
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