In the Company of Mangoes: Notes from a True Connoisseur
The season for mangoes in north India is later, often bleeding into the monsoon. Anubhuti Krishna maps a guide to Lucknow’s best mangoes, and how to eat them.
My favourite thing to do in July is to eat a mango for lunch. Peeling the skin off a luscious dusheri, digging into its bright flesh, letting the juices run down my elbows and slowly savouring its sweet flesh has been my idea of nirvana ever since I was a little girl in Lucknow. I am neither little nor in Lucknow anymore, but this remains the only way I eat a mango — and attain salvation through the sweltering months of July and August.
Mango and July might sound like a mismatched combination to many, and rightly so. The fruit, after all, starts making appearance as early as March and by April everyone seems to be pickling, eating, cooking, and baking with it. But, unlike the South and West of India, where the summer, and thereby the mangoes come in by April, the season for mango in the North begins much later.
Mangoes on a tree in Malihabad in mid June. Photos credit: Anubhuti Krishna
Between June and August, mangoes overflow through the markets in Lucknow.
In Lucknow, a city that stands in the heart of the Indo-Gangetic plains surrounded by acres of mango orchards, the fruit has never been a part of the spring-summer menu. Spring, in fact, is when the majestic mango tree finally rises from months of winter-induced slumber — its branches elongated to embrace the warm sunlight, its mature deep green leaves giving way to bright baby blooms, its stems breaking out into fragrant blossom.
As the temperature rises, these abundant mango flowers, locally called baur, slowly turn into baby mangoes. It is only by mid-April that the raw mango (amiya) is big enough to be brought to the market. It is also when grandmothers get busy washing, drying, slicing and sun drying the amiya and kids get busy stealing them from rooftops and courtyards alike. In its raw form — in recipes like aam panna and amiya-pudine ki chutney — mango is said to help the body counter the torturous summer heat, especially the loo that blows through the northern plains. A fine excuse for everyone to consume copious amounts of the tart, sharp fruit.
And then, just as it appeared, the raw mango quietly disappears — only to return in its luscious, fleshy, juicy, sweet avatar over a month later, sending the city into a state of mango-induced madness. If you talk to anyone in Lucknow from late June until August, the only conversation they are likely to have centers on the fruit — how good or bad the crop is, how the unseasonal showers have affected the yield, which vendor gets the finest varieties, how the prices have been rising year on year, and so on.
There is no stopping the mango either — it overflows through the markets, is sold in heaps by the roadside, is brought to the doorstep by the sabziwala, and is sent across the world to non-resident Lucknow-walas. My father will drive cars filled with dusheri to family members in Delhi and send suitcases full to them to Mumbai and Bengaluru. In mango season, even strangers become friends happily ferrying our motherland’s finest produce across the globe.
In most homes, mango becomes a part of breakfast, lunch, and sometimes even the dinner menu.
My fondest memory of summer remains that of my dadi picking up the finest of mangoes from the aam wala who brought them home. She would soak them in a large aluminum bucket to get rid of the heat. The bucket was brought to the dining table at lunch where she sliced mango after mango. Dadi ate only aam-roti, a combination I appreciate fully today. In the evening, the mushier fruit was blended with cold milk and served as a delectable evening snack: mango shake. At night, we ate homemade mango ice cream that was slightly crystallised, slightly runny and altogether delicious.
Aam-malai is a big thing in Lucknow homes, especially after dinner.
Among Lucknow’s exceptional mangoes, dusheri remains king. First grown about 250 years ago in a nearby village called Dusheri (hence the name) by grafting local varieties, it is synonymous with the city just as Alphonso is with Ratnagiri. A good dusheri, locals will tell you, is soft to touch but not mushy; bright orange from inside with ombré skin and a slender frame. It also has the shortest life: eat it too soon and you’d have hard pulp, leave it too long and it becomes acidic. Picking the right one is a skill (you ought to check the tip at the bottom and not go by the texture of the whole fruit) that you develop by watching your parents and grandparents buy them year on year.
A good dusheri is soft to touch but not mushy; bright orange inside with ombré skin.
A local mango called chuswa safeda, which is sucked on and not cut and eaten.
A cross section of langra from Lucknow.
Benarasi langra.
The best way to reward yourself not just for patiently waiting all summer but also picking up the right dusheri, is by eating the fruit the way I do. The more civilised way is by slicing it vertically along the stone and using a spoon to scoop out the pulp.
Langra, a fatter, rounder and deep green mango that owes its origin to Varanasi in eastern Uttar Pradesh but is grown in abundance in Lucknow too, is the second in line and dutifully appears in the markets as the dusheri begins to wind down. A good langra stands out for its fragrance, sweet and sour tasting notes, thin stone and enormous flesh. Unlike the dusheri, its pulp is light yellow which may lead one to mistake it for being under-ripe, but the thin-as-sheath skin and the heady scent always indicates when the langra is ready to eat.
It is often said that a true connoisseur of mango eats only the layered, fragrant, and flavourful langra. By that definition, I may not be the greatest mango lover, but I do love my chausa, the variety that closes the season for us.
The sweetest of all mangoes, chausa, owes its origin to the city of Chausa in Bihar. But like all great things, it crossed the border long ago and thrives in Uttar Pradesh too. The bright yellow chausa remains the juiciest with an undertone of mild bitterness that complements its sweetness. Some find it chalky and artificially sweet, but a true lover can tell the real chausa from its doppelgängers which are now abound.
The season is also interspersed with many local varieties. The small chuswa safeda, which is so fibrous that it can only be eaten by sucking from the top, the large hathijhool, which can weigh upto three kilos, and the gulab khas, which smells of roses, are among those treasured.
The arrival of chausa in the market brings with it a quiet resignation, as the city realises that mango season is coming to an end.
My heart breaks a little bit more with every passing mango, knowing my mango lunches are now numbered. But deep in my heart, I know it is just a matter of months before the beloved fruit makes a comeback, and with it will be the languorous and delicious mango meals.
Anubhuti Krishna is a writer, editor and curator who has been writing about the culinary practices of her homeland, Uttar Pradesh, for over a decade. Her cultural IP 'Lucknow with Anubhuti' aims to showcase the city's cultural and culinary heritage through a local's perspective. Her book on Lucknow's culinary culture meanwhile is underway.
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