Mmm

There is a reason why the mango has not attained the widespread popularity of other tropical fruits: it is a bastard to prepare. You’ve got to peel off the tough, inedible skin with a sharp knife. Then, while trying to keep a grip on the slippery devil, you must slice away the fruit at ever-changing and entirely unpredictable angles so as to avoid the gigantic, rectangular flat ‘stone’ onto which the succulent flesh clings. This unusual slab is more like the cartilage bone of a shark or skate than the inside of a fruit, and it puts you right off the squashed, pulpy, orange-yellow mess you are left with. We had a mango last night, our first for years. In the end I whisked it into whipped cream to make a mango, fool. I mean a mango fool. Never again will the ovoid fruit of the Mangifera Indica tree darken my door.