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Mango Mania

May is a great time to be in Puerto Escondido: there's lots of celebrating going on, the "ice-backs" have left, the great waves have returned and it's mango season.

Doña Mari's Mango Salsa

Ingredients:
6 Mangoes
1/2 Red Onion
4 Jalapeño chiles
Fresh Mint to taste
Limes

Cut the mango flesh into pieces, add diced red onion, diced mint and the jalapeños (remove the seeds and veins, then wash your hands well afterwards, that's where those fiery chili oils are concentrated). Mix it all together and add lime juice and let it sit a spell.

While some describe its taste as like a resiny peach, it is even messier, thanks to that big pit inside. Others say its flavor is like an apricot crossed with a pineapple. You decide.

The first local mangos to reach market here are the small variety they call criollos (creole). Soon will come the manila, the manzano and a host of varieties, some of which can weigh up to 2 kilos.

And people are crazy about them. Every spring and summer mangomania takes hold. Yet mangos are a relative newcomer to Mexico. It was the Portuguese who brought them from India to East Africa, then to Brazil, where the fruit spread throughout the Caribbean, arriving in Mexico in the early 19th Century.


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