03-13-2006, 09:41 AM
Monday, March 13, 2006
Mangoes for Uncle Sam, from Delhi with love
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: There is a sweeter side to the India-United States nuclear deal, namely Indian mangoes, which will begin to appear in US food stores next year around spring.
After years of to and fro negotiations, India has won approval for the export of its mangoes to the American market. The mangoes available here mostly come from Mexico. The fruit, which is an acquired taste, is not as popular as it should be in this country and the arrival of the Indian mangoes in the market is likely to be backed by an advertising campaign.
Pakistani mangoes, which by all accounts and all measures are far superior to any varieties that India can produce, will remain denied to American connoisseurs of the fruit, since Pakistan has made no discernable attempt to export to the US its mangoes and even its juicy and luscious kinoos (oranges), which India does not have.
According to actress and Indian cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey, writing in the New York Times on Sunday, while India gets nuclear fuel for its energy needs, America, doing far better in what might be called a stealth victory, finally gets mangoes. âNot those pleasantly hued but lifeless rocks that pass as mangoes in most American grocery stores. Definitely not the fibrous, unyielding, supersized Florida creations that boast long shelf life and easy handling and shipping but little else. They might hint at possibilities but provide no satisfaction. None. What America will be getting is the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavours acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting.â
The New York-based Ms Jaffrey, once married to actor Saeed Jaffrey, reminds Americans that the mangoes will be seasonal and people will learn to wait for them, just as Indians do. âThey cannot be pushed to grow in hothouses. Indian mango trees, many of them hundreds of years old - and some reputed to be thousands of years old - need to breathe the same free, fresh air Indians breathe and live through Indiaâs three main seasons: summer, the monsoons and winter. Only then will they deign to bear fruit.â She recalls that one mango tree in Chandigarh, East Punjab, bore about 30,000 pounds of mangoes every year for 150 years until it was hit by lightning, which made it fall over.
Ms Jaffrey recalls that one attempt she made to âsmuggleâ Indian mangoes to America was unsuccessful. <b>A customs inspector asked her if she was carrying any mangoes. When she replied that she was, the fruit was confiscated. She later saw customs officers slicing and eating the confiscated mangoes. </b>She recounts that the Buddha is known to have rested under shady mango trees, while Akbar the Great accelerated the process of mango planting and grafting by laying out a garden with 100,000 trees. She lists three popular varieties that would come to the American market in a yearâs time: the langra from Varanasi, the dussehri from Lucknow and the Alphonso from Bombay.
Mangoes for Uncle Sam, from Delhi with love
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: There is a sweeter side to the India-United States nuclear deal, namely Indian mangoes, which will begin to appear in US food stores next year around spring.
After years of to and fro negotiations, India has won approval for the export of its mangoes to the American market. The mangoes available here mostly come from Mexico. The fruit, which is an acquired taste, is not as popular as it should be in this country and the arrival of the Indian mangoes in the market is likely to be backed by an advertising campaign.
Pakistani mangoes, which by all accounts and all measures are far superior to any varieties that India can produce, will remain denied to American connoisseurs of the fruit, since Pakistan has made no discernable attempt to export to the US its mangoes and even its juicy and luscious kinoos (oranges), which India does not have.
According to actress and Indian cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey, writing in the New York Times on Sunday, while India gets nuclear fuel for its energy needs, America, doing far better in what might be called a stealth victory, finally gets mangoes. âNot those pleasantly hued but lifeless rocks that pass as mangoes in most American grocery stores. Definitely not the fibrous, unyielding, supersized Florida creations that boast long shelf life and easy handling and shipping but little else. They might hint at possibilities but provide no satisfaction. None. What America will be getting is the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavours acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting.â
The New York-based Ms Jaffrey, once married to actor Saeed Jaffrey, reminds Americans that the mangoes will be seasonal and people will learn to wait for them, just as Indians do. âThey cannot be pushed to grow in hothouses. Indian mango trees, many of them hundreds of years old - and some reputed to be thousands of years old - need to breathe the same free, fresh air Indians breathe and live through Indiaâs three main seasons: summer, the monsoons and winter. Only then will they deign to bear fruit.â She recalls that one mango tree in Chandigarh, East Punjab, bore about 30,000 pounds of mangoes every year for 150 years until it was hit by lightning, which made it fall over.
Ms Jaffrey recalls that one attempt she made to âsmuggleâ Indian mangoes to America was unsuccessful. <b>A customs inspector asked her if she was carrying any mangoes. When she replied that she was, the fruit was confiscated. She later saw customs officers slicing and eating the confiscated mangoes. </b>She recounts that the Buddha is known to have rested under shady mango trees, while Akbar the Great accelerated the process of mango planting and grafting by laying out a garden with 100,000 trees. She lists three popular varieties that would come to the American market in a yearâs time: the langra from Varanasi, the dussehri from Lucknow and the Alphonso from Bombay.