Returning foodie SALLY BEERWORTH writes about her ‘sweet childhood Mango Memories,’ after her visit to Portobello Road, London.

Mango memories By Sally Beerworth

Portobello Road market’s website promotes that it sells antiques, fashion, art (beauty being in the eye of the beholder) and food. I managed to buy something yesterday that the tourist may have missed- memories from my childhood.

When we were younger my mother would give us each a mango and make us sit on the front lawn and eat it in out swimming costumes. Probably in part to get the three of us out of the house, but also because it was the easiest way to make sure that we didn’t get mangoes all over the house. Cream carpet was not one of her best decisions.

A GOOD WASH WITH THE HOSE

When we were finished (and the definition of finished in our house means sucking both the skin and the seed dry,) my mother would turn on the garden hose and spray us down on the lawn. Only then were we allowed back the house. Again, now that I am older, I wonder whether she didn’t secretly derive some satisfaction out of this ritual.

So yesterday when I walked past a man selling boxes of mangoes, I found myself unable to resist buying a box. 20 minutes later I had eaten three of them. They were the sweetest mangoes I had eaten in years. I can’t even remember sadly what a mango tastes like from my native Australia but these ones from Pakistan suited me just fine. I didn’t sit on the lawn but settled for a tea towel fashioned as a bib and put a second one on my lap just in case.

I would have eaten more of them but I had made the mistake of starting to read the brochure that the mango man (this title should definitely be a t-shirt) gave me.

MEDICAL MANGO RESEARCH

It assured me that mangoes were ‘good to eat either ripe or unripe.’ I wasn’t entirely convinced but kept reading. I was glad I did, as I discovered that mangoes are good for ‘preventing mental weakness.’ I wondered whether I should go back for more before sent back to work on Monday.

Then I got to the part about mangoes ‘prevents internal hemorrhage.’ For some reason I did not find this reassuring, maybe because it had never occurred to me that there would I would be suffering any internal hemorrhaging. And maybe because its not the sort of thing you want to visualize whilst you have mango juice dripping down both of your arms.

So there are three uneaten mangoes on my kitchen windowsill, one is rather bruised after falling out into the courtyard below. I assume it is not hemorrhaging though. When I have recovered from mango man’s reading material I will reach for yet another mango, because what the brochure doesn’t tell you is that mangoes in some cases can bring back the most wonderful memories of a garden hose. Even 25 years later.

POYP wants to know what was your foodie childhood memory? Was it a sobering experience?

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