Day 85: Chaunsa Mangoes - The King of the Mangoes

The King of the Mangoes. I didn't come up with the name. That's just what it's called! It's also known as the "Chaunsa" mango and it is mainly cultivated in India and Pakistan. It is is in season between June and mid-August, and you can buy them right now in little India.

The sign of them read "Very Sweet" in a black marker. They cost over $2 each, and they're smaller than those massive red mangoes you get all year round. But the taste. Oh the taste. If you've ever been or lived in Southeast Asia, this is what you're used to. Sweet flavour, cold slippery texture, not fibrous at all, and pumped full of mangoey (is that even a word?) flavour.

In the Philippines, the most common mango is the ataulfo mango, aka Manila mango, and they are actually grown in Mexico, so we can get them here in Canada when they are in season (April - October). And they're probably not as good here in Canada as they are if you get them fresh in the Philippines or Mexico, but they're pretty damn awesome. Right now in Little India, you can get them for 50 cents each, so about 75% less than the Chaunsa mango.

But more common in your average grocery store is the Tommy Atkins mango, which aren't very sweet and the flesh is harder, drier, and more fibrous, but definitely passable given our options in Canada. But they ship well, have long shelf lives, and don't bruise as easily. Apparenlty 80% of mangoes in the UK and US are these. For some reason, I always call these "Mexican Mangoes", to distinguish them from "Filipino Mangoes" although I can't find any reference to this name on internet so I don't know if I made up that name or I saw it somewhere.

Ataulfo mango vs. Tommy Atkins

Why are they Chaunsa mangoes so expensive vs. Ataulfo or Tommy Atkins? If you are conscious of carbon footprint, cover your ears. The short answer is that I bet that they are air freighted in, and that adds a few bucks per pound. But why are these air freighted in? I'm about to launch into a bit of an economics speculation, so you can skip this section below, but absolutely economics matters in food. Keep in mind that one of secrets to any fruit is the ripening process. As you may know, a fruit which is ripened on the tree or vine, will always have more natural and delicious sugars. Easy for a grocer in the Philippines to access these fruits because the grower is a few miles away, but here in frosty Canada - how do you get these tree ripened fruits? Put yourself in the position of the grocer. First, you can get them from a Canadian hot house, think about tomatoes, so you can get them vine ripened even in the winter. Yum. Alternatively, you can find a distributor who brings them in from Latin America, so typically they have to be picked a few weeks before they're ripened and allowed to ripen on the container over where a distributor would ship them to you. These typically won't taste nearly as good and sometimes the transportation process bruises the fruit and it gets sensitive to shelf life. There's always the option of preserved vegetables, and if you think about it, part of the great expansion in Dutch trade in the 17th century was because of the invention of a process of preserving fish and specialized ships that allowed this to happen (called "gibbing" if you're ever interested). So preservation is an option. But there is a change in flavour. Finally, you could air freight them in. Air freight comes over in 24-48 hours I believe, so they can be tree ripened in Pakistan, and at your grocery counter 24 hours later. But air freight is much more costly than shipping by container because of the packages are harder to handle (vs. shipping containers which can be picked right off a boat and directly loaded onto a truck), the fuel cost of lifting an aircraft thousands of feet above ground, and you don't get scale because you're not bringing in thousands of grocery stores worth. It might be just for you and three other stores. And air freight can be shipped right to your grocery store or a storage place near the airport, so there's all those costs of getting to the airport, picking up a small amount, and then bringing them to your doorstep within a few hours. It could be handled by a distributor, or who knows, each of them could do it on their own, and the grocery store owner could drive to the airport on the way onto work, whatever, the point is that air freight adds a few extra bucks per pound (hence $2 per mango). This is neither here nor there. Sometimes it's the only alternative for getting amazing tasting mangoes in Canada.

Day 81: Strawberries

Strawberries are the epitome of that childlike mindset that if it's tasty, it can't possibly be good for you. Because strawberries are yummy, but people used to tell me that they weren't as healthy as, say, brussell sprouts. Based on my own research, in fact, strawberries have an exceptional amount of antioxidants. In any case, no one eats strawberries for antioxidants, nor should you because that takes away from the fun. I also hear about strawberries as an example of indulgence that contributes to global harm. Has anyone ever complained to you, in the context of a world of consumerism leading to excessive transportation and global warming externalities, that "as a society, we require things like strawberries in the wintertime". So a bad rep for these fruits. But point taken, strawberries in the wintertime aren't that tasty (I think that's the point of these anti-consumerism activists, right?)

Strawberries have been in season for a few weeks already, and the season is going to stretch maybe into mid July if we're lucky. For the rest of the year, we get them from places like California. They get picked early on, ripen in trucks, and then arrive in Ontario. The species are genetically selected for size, shininess and to withstand the harsh treck diagonally across the continent. But when they're in season, they picked at their prime, ripening on the bush and letting the sugars all blossom naturally. The best strawberries are the small ones, slightly darker in colour, not shiny, but fresh because that's where all the sugar comes from. The big fat shiny ones are watery in their juices, slightly sour, and one dimensional in flavour. They're about $5 per quart (about 20 strawberries) or sometimes $6 per quart for smaller strawberries, but for smaller ones, you get more because even though it's still a quart, you can fit more strawberries in them because they're smaller and they fill more of the empty spaces. And the smaller ones are sometimes better. I've seen these smaller ones called "field strawberries" here... wondering if they're actually a different variety?

You usually should wash them before eating them because of the pesticides, but eating a few unwashed won't kill you, unless you are a bug.

On Strawberries (from wikipedia)

The strawberry is, in technical terms, an aggregate accessory fruit, meaning that the fleshy part is derived not from the plant's ovaries but from the "receptacle" that holds the ovaries. Each apparent "seed" (achene) on the outside of the fruit is actually one of the ovaries of the flower, with a seed inside it. In both culinary and botanical terms, the entire structure is considered a fruit.

The first garden strawberry was grown in France during the late 18th century. Prior to this, wild strawberries and cultivated selections from wild strawberry species were the common source for the fruit. Other names for wild strawberries include  Alpine Strawberry, Fraises des Bois, Wild Strawberry, and European Strawberry.

Day 56: Local Peaches

You might be asking why I don't specify where my peach comes from or exactly what variety it is? Well, not really being a peach afficionado, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it is local, and in season and the reasons are probably pretty obvious. When it's local, it can ripen right on the tree and so you get all those natural sugars crystallizing right on your tongue. When it's in season, it doesn't have the time to sit in the cooler and change its texture. Most of us are aware of the difference between vine-ripened tomatoes versus those which are picked early, and then allowed to ripen on the freight trains that ship them from central and latin America. The flavours are never remotely close to being as robust, and the texture is always too hard. This is even especially true for peaches and all other soft fruits.

I got these peaches from the farmer's market for $6 for about 20 peaches, but the price is approximately the same at the grocery store (I can bore you with the economics of it another time) and I could be wrong, but I think the two are fairly similar in terms of freshness and time to market. They are amazing at this time of year. The skin is soft and chewy, the flesh is bursting with juice, the colour is a vibrant orange mingled with red.

The real kicker, though, is the texture. Soft and mushy but also firm, fibrous, and juicy. As a sort of side note, when you really think about the benefit of eating fresh fruit, it's yes, about the flavour. But it's equally really about the texture. The texture, after being shipped from out of country, is either too hard (if it's put on the shelf early), or too dry. So for me, freshness really is about texture and that's pretty much the same for most foods. Except for a few food snobs, most people can't probably can't taste the difference between a frozen and a fresh fish other than that one has more flavour than the other. But the texture is immediately obvious to even to the simplest human being.

Also, to really enjoy it you have to be able to just tuck right into it. Take a knife, and cut a piece off right in your hand. Let it drip down your chin. Let it get sticky on your fingers. And you have to eat the skin right off the peach. The skin is one of the best parts. It's a primal activity, yes it absolutely utterly is. And when there's little soft mushy spots... yum, eat them... that's where all the sweetness is! Whenever I go to an South Asian restaurant and see people eat with their hands, I get so jealous because I have some stupid innate inhibition to eat anything wet and drippy in public. Food just, plain and simple, tastes way better when you dive in with your hands.

Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against a mango salsa . But picking at it with a silver fork, you really lose the essence of the mango. Give me a real mango that I can suck dry, right down to the seed and I would take that ANY day of the week. Growing up on a farm, I can attest that here in Canada, we get some of the best apples, peaches, pears, cherries, you name it, in the whole world.

So my advice is, if you could humour me, to right now, go to a farmer's market. Go to an orchard. Go to a supermarket. It doesn't matter, but when the peaches are as good as it is right now (AND as cheap), take advantage of it. Eat them with your hands. And make sure they are at room temperature - the texture and the flavour are way better than when they're cold. Bon appetit!

On the seasonality of Ontario peaches (from OntarioTenderFruit.com):

Semi-Freestone Peaches - available July 25 to mid August.

The flesh of the semi-freestone variety partially clings to the pit. These peaches are excellent for eating out-of-hand. Types of semi-freestone peaches include: Harrow Diamond, Springcrest, Candor, Harrow Dawn, Early Redhaven, Garnet Beauty, Risingstar, Brighton, Sunhaven, Harbelle and Sentinel.

Freestone Peaches - available August 15 to September 30.

The flesh of a freestone peach separates easily from the pit. Perfect for eating fresh and for all your preserving needs. Types of freestone peaches include: Redhaven, Vivid, Harbite, Harson, Blazingstar, Harrowfair, Starfire, Veeglo, Harrow Beauty, Loring, PF24, Allstar, Coralstar, Cresthaven, Redskin, Glowingstar and Harcrest.

Day 38: Maui Pineapples

The pineapple itself looks a bit smaller than the grocery store variety, but they are really sweet, like honey sweet and just packed with flavour. The juice is so thick, it's almost syrupy.

They seem to be less fibrous too than the usual kind, and are slightly chewier in texture. The colour is paler yellow than, say, the canned pineaples.

The awesome thing is that you can buy these right on the road, and you just stick the coins into a trusty box and take the pineapples.