Endless mango…

Mango kòn, mango fransik, mango tòtòt…mango kanèl, mango muska, mango baptiste, mango blan….

If you haven’t guessed it yet, it’s mango season here!!

The list provided above is of some of the names we assign to the many mango varieties found on our beloved land. Yes, these mangos, and possibly more, for I may have missed some of them, will be available to our Haitian palates in the upcoming weeks.

A season to look forward to, isn’t it?!

I know I am definitely excited by the thought of eating as many mango baptiste as I possibly can. These mildly sweet mangos pictured above and their firm flesh have always been my favorites. Throughout my childhood, when dad still worked in La Plaine, he would bring us dozens of these rays of sunshine, as I love to describe the yellowness of this particular mango variety.

I still remember how he would sit at the family table and take his time to peel the mango – my clumsy fingers couldn’t master the art of using a knife at the time, well I am still clumsy actually but that’s besides the point here – and cut super thin slices that he would hand me using the tip of the knife. I was happy that he cut them so thin for it made me feel like I was getting more mango out of it, though looking back, I think he was just trying to keep as much of the fruit to himself as possible, especially since he knew I would stop eating as he got closer to the core.

Indeed, I never ate the mango to the core, and I still don’t. The clean freak in me couldn’t stand having her hands covered with sweet mango juice. Come to think about it, this is probably the reason why mango baptiste is the mango variety that won me over. Its flesh can easily be cut out in chunks without it squeezing its entire juice out, unlike some of the others listed above.

Mango baptiste is the most firm of these fruits that I have tried to date. It remains to be proven, however, that it’s the only one of its kind grown locally. I have yet to try all of the ones listed above, but I do plan to.

This year, I made it my goal to try and sample as many varieties as possible for the sake of this blog and helping you discover each of them. I will do my best to at least share three of them with you on our Instagram and Twitter accounts. As for the varieties that will be left out, you’ll just have to keep reading till next season 😉

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4 Comments

  • Balmy Jones

    Y madame francis mango???
    Que triste!

  • Pierre Marcel

    La mangue rosalie, (mango rosalie) mon Dieu! quel fruit! quel délice!

  • Je ne me rappelle malheureusement pas toutes ces variétés de mangues sauf la “francik” et la “blanc”.

    Je me rappelle d’ailleurs il y a environ deux ans, une amie guadeloupéenne m’envoie une photo sur ma page facebook me demandant si je connaissais la mangue qui était en photo et dans l’arbre en plus. Je n’en croyais pas mes yeux. On dirait un “mango blan”. Ça faisait presque 30 ans que j’en avais pas mangés. Et qu’il y ait cette variété en Guadeloupe me paraissait irréel.

    C’était pourtant bien ça. Une dame haïtienne proche de sa famille avait gentiment planté ce manguier. Et c’était la première année qu’il portait des fruits. Les animaux avaient malheureusement mangé les fruits mais elle avait réussi à me sauver une mangue. On ne pouvait me faire un plus beau cadeau. Je crois que je n’ai jamais été aussi heureuse de manger une mangue.

    J’ai découvert par la suite qu’il y avait quelques “pié mango blan” en Guadeloupe certainement plantés par des haïtiens, que même une bonne amie haïtienne avait un chez elle, parce que cette variété comme presque toutes celles citées dans l’article ne sont pas connues ici.

    Merci de nous remettre en mémoire des souvenirs presque disparus.

    • Linda

      Merci, ce fut vraiment une superbe experience qui provoque la nostalgie.

  • Martine Romain Megie

    En plus de la liste des mangues, il faudra ajouter celle des autres fruits de l’ete qui agrementent les grandes vacances des ecoliers haitiens. Ainsi j’aurai la joie de voir defiler devant toutes les joies que j’ai eues enfant a les deguster.

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