I grew up in a plantation camp. It was literally a lot of houses next to the highway, surrounded on every other side by sugar cane fields. The roads were red dirt and so full of holes that you had to drive so slow that walking would get you there faster. I think the road that I grew up on was row 11, and it was all the way on the end with the big tamarind tree.
Growing up in a plantation camp isn't that awesome. Friends hated going down there if they didn't live there themselves. But there was one awesome thing - there were mango and lychee trees everywhere. As kids we used to pick mango where ever we saw it and you could eat it so many ways! If it was green you'd cut it up and soak it in some apple cider vinegar/shoyu. My lord, we used to drink that when the mango was gone. Hello sodium high! If you knew how, and if you had the patience, you could also pickle it. If it was half-ripe we'd sprinkle salt and pepper over it. And if it were ripe (and not a #9) we would cut that sucker up and go to town! But don't forget to wash your mouth after or it would be soooo itchy!
I never paid for mango until I moved to another island. Here, people call the police if they see you taking mango off of their trees. Since I'd rather not go to jail over a mango and because it's ridiculously expensive I've done without mango for a lot of years. But I've always been insanely jealous of the mango I see just sitting high up in trees just waiting for a homemade mango picker to come along. Until this mango season, that is.
See, we moved a year ago and our back neighbor has a mango tree in the corner of their lot that hangs into our next door neighbor's lot. Does that even make sense? Regardless. There is now free mango to be had! $3/mango (farmer's market price!) be damned! The drawback is that when the neighbor picks mango, they only pick the ripe ones and I"m the only one in the house that eats ripe mango! Well, my monkey would but he was a little sensitive to mango when we first gave it to him so I'm still leery about giving him any.
After years of doing without, I now have mango coming out of my ears but here are a couple of recipes that are helping me use up what keeps appearing on my kitchen counter.
Magic mango bread: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Magic-Mango-Bread
This is better the second day (but still good on day 1!) but go ahead and skip the step about letting it sit for 20 minutes. I forgot to do that the last time and it still came out yummy. And skip the coconut. People can be so weird about it.
Mango cookies: http://www.makeandtakes.com/mango-chocolate-chip-cookies
I've still in the process of baking these and it's my first time. Maybe it's better the second day as well. Right now it's just okay. I used dark chocolate chips and tossed in some mac nuts but I'm still on the fence.
I still have mango so I may try the DIY mango fruit roll-up that's on Pinterest as well. And when all else fails, keep a couple of mango in the fridge so you can always have a nicely chilled treat.
Until then, have some bread...or a cookie.
