Mango

The mango is the fruit of the mango tree, large tree tropical of the family of Anacardiaceae, native to the forests of India, from Pakistan and Burma where it still grows wild. This tree, Mangifera indica, has evergreen, dense, dark green foliage. The shape of its fruit is the basis of the paisley pattern. Its name comes from the Portuguese manga, taken from malayalam മാങ്ങ, māṅga, which comes from Tamil மாங்காய், māṅgāy.

The fruits of other trees, of the genus Irvingia, are called wild mangos (these fruits are green with black spots and their flesh is of a beautiful orange color and an exquisite perfume), attached to the family of Irvingiaceae.

Description

Mango is a fleshy fruit, its weight varies from 300 g to 2 kg. It is a drupe, its flesh adheres to a broad, flat and slippery core. It may be round, oval or kidney-shaped, and has bark that may be yellow, green or red, which must be removed because it contains irritating substances and is therefore not edible.

Its flesh is dark yellow, unctuous, oily and sweet with a peach and flower taste. Depending on the variety or when the fruit is too mature, the flesh sometimes becomes stringy.

History

According to the texts, Buddha received as gift of the courtesan Ambapali a mango orchard to meditate and, according to multiple interpretations, to serve as a source of income allowing him to devote himself to his path. Mango will thus tend to spread with Buddhism, reaching the v^th century BC. J. C. Malaysia then the Far East. The Chinese traveler and pilgrim Xuanzang would have brought him back to China from his trip to India. The Arabs introduce it to the Middle East and Africa.

In 1328, Jodanus Cutulus, Bishop of Columbum, Quilon in Kerala made the first mention. In the first half of the xv^th century, the traveler Niccolò de 'Conti made the first description under the name of amba, the Sanskrit amram.

In the sixteenth century, the Mughal Emperor Akbar has planted an orchard of 100,000 mango trees in the gardens of Darbhanga. From Africa, the Portuguese bring it to Brazil and it spreads in the New World. The first crops in Florida, due to Dr Henry Perine, date from 1833, the fruit reaches California in the 1880s.

Today, mango is grown in all the tropical and subtropical countries of the world, and there are several hundred different species of which only a few are traded. In the Punjab State of India, in Burail, grows a mango tree 20 m high, 10 m in circumference, with branches 4 m in circumference and more than 25 m long, which gives 17 000 kg of mangoes per year.