Come summer, one finds a lot of mango flavor in our cooking, adding color, a tangy twist and a hint of sweetness to dals, curries, pachadis, pickles, salads, drinks, smoothies or desserts. We literally eat, drink and live, different varieties of mangoes not only from trees grown in our backyard but also from the farm in our village (ancestral home).
Our backyard is completely covered with mango and coconut tree branches and this summer the mango trees, are in full bloom, laden with 3 varieties of mangoes, suvarnarekha (lalpari), rasalu and kothapalli kobbari.
The king of fruits happens to be our family’s best loved fruit and when its home-grown, freshly plucked off the tree (I just can’t describe the pleasure of plucking a mango right off the tree), still raw and green and placed in rice containers or hay stacks to ripen to a rich golden hue, its all the more treasured and relished.
The other day, I was able to capture an image of a snake sliding off the mango tree into the nearby rocks.
