It's Mango Season Again!

'Mangoes and Sticky Rice' aka Heaven on Earth



'Green Mangoes with Chilli Paste'

It's officially the hottest hot season now. People say there are 3 seasons in Thailand, the hot season, the rainy season, and the 'cool' season. I beg to differ. More accurately, the seasons seem to follow a hot, hotter, and hottest pattern. And thus we enter the hottest season. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it gets pretty miserable. Especially when you live in a house like mine that is concrete with wooden windows and virtually no ventilation. Air conditioning, forget it. It just pains one to think of it. Even the simplest tasks become daunting and riding my bike past 4 km requires ample energy. Showing 3-4 times a day is a must, if not a given for courtesy to others and for alleviation of the hot pressure.

Ode to Mangoes
And from this unimaginable heat come the mangoes. My memories flash back from a year ago when the weather was unbearable but the food was so fresh and so good. I start to see mangoes surfacing around every corner. It's hard to explain the wonderfulness that are Thai Mangoes. Or many other Thai fruits to that matter. There are so many mangoes here and they are all equally scrumptious and splendid. Small mangoes, large mangoes, sour mangoes, sweet mangoes. Once the mangoes start flooding in, the possibilities are limitless as to how they can be eaten. One of the easiest way to enjoy them is eaten when they are green (sour or sweet depending on the variety) with chili paste or alone. Then, there's one of my person favorites, mangoes and sticky rice--the very ripe, luscious yellowish mangoes sliced with a side of sticky rice and a sweet white sauce. The little mangoes can be eaten outright, with slight peeling of the skins. There's also mango salad (a rendition of papaya salad) and mango sauce. When the village becomes overloaded with ripe mangoes, villagers boil them to a thick paste and lay them flat on wax paper in the sun to dry, producing a sort of dried mango fruit role.

It's during the unyielding heat of the day and when I'm almost at my wits end when someone suddenly appears with some fresh mangoes and my spirits are once again revived. Thank goodness for mangoes.




Villager Preparing Mango Snack



Mangoes ready for Pickin