Mango's Culinary Journey and Roots Explored in New Book

The Hindu

16-06-2025

Not many know that the origin of the mango lies in northeast India, or that grinding stones and pottery dating from 1500 BC and belonging to the Harappans revealed traces of the fruit. If you would like to deep dive into the history of the king of fruits, Mango: A Global History by sisters Constance L Kirker and Mary Newman is a great starting point. Launched as a part of the Edible series (published by Pan Macmillan), the book traces the fruit's history, its cultural significance in India with references in Hindu epics and Ghalib's poetry, and also delves into the geopolitics of mango cultivation, consumption, and current sustainability efforts.
The duo says that it was during the research for Edible Flowers: A Global History (2016), that they visited markets in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. 'Connie lived for a while in Singapore and travelled frequently throughout Asia. Based on what we learned on our travels,mango seemed a natural progression for the series,' says Mary, a writer and culinary researcher..
While there were no mangoes in Ohio, where the sisters grew up, their travels in the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Cambodia also contributed research for the book. 'In addition to academic research, our favourite sources of information came from our travel experiences and getting stories from the people we met, taking cooking classes all over the world, attending food festivals, visiting farms, processing plants, and eating!' says writer and culinary historian, Constance.
The book, they say, 'explores the properties of mangoes through the lens of the five senses'. Constance explains that while taste is important for enjoying a mango, the other senses play a major role as well, 'including the sight of their beautiful colours, and the smell of a fully ripe mango'. 'There is a component of texture to mangoes as the juices and fibers stimulate those senses. Even the sound of someone sucking on a mango pit evokes the senses,' she says, 'A really good mango should be messy, a full body experience employing all the senses; sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. It is said that you should really eat a mango while naked in a bathtub.'
Something Queen Victoria certainly would not approve. The book highlights how the queen, 'a great champion of etiquette and elaborate table manners' expanded the use of cutlery worldwide and a mango fork was designed during the Victorian period. Mango also has references of how the British did not 'savour the sight of Indians squatting on the floor and sucking on mangoes, with the juice flowing down their elbows. They often referred to it as the 'bathroom fruit', and instructed their Indian servants to confine the mess of mango eating to the bathroom.' Elizabeth II, on the other hand, relished the fruit. According to her former chef John Higgins, she 'really enjoyed mangoes, and could tell you how many mangoes were in the fridge at Buckingham Palace', states the book.
Of all the facts and interesting finds that the duo discovered during their research, they were most surprised by the 'almost fanatical, universal, and personal attachment that people in countries where the fruit flourishes have for their variety of mangoes'. 'People don't just 'like' their mangoes, they 'love' their mangoes with a devotion unmatched by any other fruit in the US or Europe,' says Mary. Constance believes mangoes are 'sexy'. 'Fittingly, they are the only fruit with a position named after them in the famed love manual, the Kama Sutra,' she adds. The authors also discovered over 50 works of fiction with mango in their titles, and over 20 culinary memoirs and cookbooks, and several children's books with titles of the fruit.
Food references aside, the book also looks at the fruit's religious and cultural connotations. For instance, there are many examples of the fruit and the mango tree in the teachings of Buddhism, and how the Buddha has a rounded chin shaped like a mango stone. The traditional South Indian gold bridal necklace, called a 'mango mala', is adorned with mango-shaped stones, representing the wish for a fertile marriage.
The well-curated recipe section in the book features a mango menu with mango wine/lassi/tea; starters such as raw mango rasam, aamras; mains like aamchur chicken, Haitian mango chicken; sides like the Vietnamese green mango salad; and desserts including mango float, mango barfi, and more. 'Since our book is a global history, the mango recipes were all taken from historical sources from around the world,' says Constance. The recipe for mango curry, for instance, is taken from food writer Soity Banerjee's conjecture of what a 2000-year-old curry may have been like. 'I experimented with some mango recipes. I took the recipe for aam papad, and substituted American mango babyfood for the pulp and seasoned it with tajin (a Mexican spice blend of chiles, lime and salt) making an accessible, intercultural variation,' says Mary. For the mango chutney, Constance adapted it from a 1930 recipe from Fairchild Botanical Gardens, a mango research centre in Florida.
Mango: A Global History is priced at ₹599 and is available on amazon.in