The flow­ing sticky, sweet droplets dry and stick to your face. Some con­tin­ue run­ning, some­times drib­bling be­neath your chin. Un­daunt­ed, you con­tin­ue sink­ing your teeth in­to the de­lec­table pulp, the sweet­ness ring­ing sharply through­out your taste buds.At the end of de­vour­ing every bit of flesh, you suck the seed dry. Yel­low fi­bre-strings are lodged be­tween your teeth, but this doesn't de­ter you as you reach to re­peat the process with an­oth­er beck­on­ing ripe man­go.

Man­goes are said to have orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia, In­done­sia and Malaysia and have been cul­ti­vat­ed for hun­dreds of years. Man­goes grow in warmer cli­mates world­wide, and in the Caribbean, they flour­ish be­tween the months of June and Au­gust.In our re­gion, they're a favourite among fruits, and we know them by their usu­al­ly bright peachy-yel­low, some­times red-pink­ish skin when ripe, green when un­ripe. Ripe man­goes are some­times speck­led with black or brown spots and the riper they are, the more their en­tic­ing aro­ma fills the air.In the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed man­go sea­son, trees be­come laden with the fruits which hang in clus­ters at the end of stalks. These de­light­ful, cher­ished fruits are not on­ly sin­ful­ly deca­dent: they serve great pur­pose as well.

Nu­tri­tion­al ben­e­fits

Nu­tri­tion­ist Yvonne Bat­son of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Nu­tri­tion­ists and Di­eti­cians In­sti­tu­tion, tells me that like most oth­er fruits, man­goes are a great source of vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als. "Man­goes are rich in Vi­t­a­min A, be­ta carotene (which turns in­to vi­t­a­min A in the body) and an­tiox­i­dants which are very good for your body for all sorts of things, like neu­tral­is­ing free rad­i­cals," she says.

Free rad­i­cals are mol­e­cules that cause ag­ing, tis­sue dam­age and some de­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. And a nice tasty man­go can help to tack­le them. But man­goes are loaded with much more nu­tri­tion­al val­ue, in­clud­ing vi­t­a­mins C, E and K, potas­si­um, mag­ne­sium, phos­pho­rous and fi­bre. Lots of fi­bre, which we all know is ex­cel­lent for main­tain­ing free-mov­ing bow­els.But apart from re­liev­ing con­sti­pa­tion, high di­etary fi­bre is cred­it­ed with low­er­ing our risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and di­a­betes by re­duc­ing our cho­les­terol lev­el. Bet you nev­er thought that juicy man­go was good for so much!

Sweet or sour

The high sug­ary con­tent of man­goes makes them per­fect can­di­dates for del­i­ca­cies like sor­bet and ice cream.They al­so make tasty punch­es, blend­ed with milk and a lit­tle spice like cin­na­mon-a cus­tom­ary drink in Cu­ba.

Equal­ly though, they are en­joyed green, and some­times slight­ly sour, in chow as not­ed pre­vi­ous­ly or spicy chut­neys that ac­com­pa­ny cur­ries. Man­go an­char, a com­bi­na­tion of green man­goes cooked with black an­char masala, gar­lic, chadon beni (al­so called ban­da­nia, salt and hot pep­per is an­oth­er favourite end prod­uct of the green man­go. The man­go is fre­quent­ly cur­ried as well and eat­en like a veg­etable.In T&T, man­goes al­so make a pop­u­lar snack when pre­served in red colour­ing and sea­son­ings, ei­ther sweet or pep­pery, known as red man­go. Small pack­ets of these are al­so pop­u­lar through­out the Caribbean Di­as­po­ra.In oth­er Caribbean is­lands, man­goes are com­mon on break­fast trays or fruit bowls.

How­ev­er they are en­joyed, man­goes are loved the world over, even in ar­eas where they are not grown, such as North Amer­i­ca and the Unit­ed King­dom. In Lon­don, ex­pect to pay as much as £1 for a medi­um sized man­go.In T&T, man­go sales tend to be high, al­though many house­holds can boast of hav­ing their own trees. This is be­cause peo­ple are ea­ger to buy the man­go va­ri­eties that they don't have in their own back­yards.But what­ev­er the price, some peo­ple think it's worth pay­ing for this de­light! Man­goes are the ap­ples of the Caribbean and in many ways, King of the Fruit.

(U The Caribbean Health Di­gest)