Mangoes? You can't be serious?

The Pampered Chef Mango Wedge.  Great when you can get mangos.

Mangos. Seen one recently?

 

Do you know what, I couldn't buy a mango last week.

I had change in my pocket earmarked for a couple of them.  But there wasn't one single mango in my town to buy. Not one. Well, actually that's not quite true.  There was one, in a traditional grocers, but it had clearly been a mango for quite a long time and had long since dispensed with the need for keeping up appearances.  It had let itself go rather.  Even the lady in the shop didn't bother to hide her dismay; she didn't even really try to sell it to me.


'Yes...it's a bit past it, isn't..?' she said in a faltering voice.  But she still put it back on the rack, mind you.

Now I appreciate for many reading this, the situation sounds highly unlikely.  You've already gone back and re-read the first bit.

'Did he say there were none - in his town..!?' 

Well, yes I did.  I checked the supermarkets and the two available grocers.  You see, I live in a small, rural market town.  Even a few miles down the road the mango choice would no doubt have been extensive.  I could have browsed on at a leisurely pace through a selection, tweaking as I went to check for flabby bits or round firm buttock-y type portions.


And this search was first thing, about 8am to avoid any rush on exotic items.  But it was interesting to note the reaction of those I asked.  I had to ask in the shops - something we don't normally do these days - because time was of the essence and I needed to get to the point.

Having received a few startled jumps from the early supermarket gang, unsettled by demands for information on the whereabouts of fruits native to the Indian subcontinet, I dashed instead to the grocers.  The first encounter is detailed above and the second and final was even more brief.  I didn't even really make it through the doors properly. A quick dash passed the Jersey Royals and a chap, still putting out the morning displays, came up to me with armfuls of strawberry punnets.

'Morning!'  Cheery so far, in a grocer kind of way. 'Looking for anything in particular Sir..?'
'Well...mangoes actually, I don't suppose you..?

He shot me a glance that hovered between disbelief and outrage.

Strawberry punnets

'Mangoes?! No, definitely not!' Then, short pause...'Sorry about that' after he'd regained his composure. The look on his face suggested he was far too busy with a potential early strawberry rush to spend time on whimsical requests, I was clearly getting ideas above my station and should really downsize my ambitions. Or maybe he knew that mango peel and sap contain urushiol, the chemical  in poison ivy and I was obviously planning some kind of civil disobedience.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in a small community, I'm not an urban creature. But there are times when it would be great to be somewhere where you could buy more than one sort of rice.  And don't get me started on  polenta.  That can never be an impulse buy, involving a 50 mile round trip; no I'm not joking.

So mango and chilli salsa is on hold until I venture onwards.  I would like to sample the PChef Mango Wedger with its dishwasher safe ergonomic handles and protective storage cover, but...geography will clearly play its part.

There are 35,000,000 tonnes grown worldwide, and the only mango I could get couldn't manage The Last Waltz, never mind a Salsa.
 

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