The Best Mango in the World!!!

I am not ashamed to admit I'm a Mango Snob!  Tell me about a mango you've had you found delicious and I'm immediately sneering "Turpentine!!!" because I KNOW MANGOES!!! And I know that if you aren't in either North Queensland or Fiji, or that mango didn't come from either NQ or Fiji, that mango wasn't as wonderful as you think it was.

Yup, if your mango isn't from those places I'm instantly "Bah Humbug!!!  Don't talk to me about Turpentines!" because to both me and Keith - another Mango Snob - living in NQ and Fiji will do that to you -  anything that isn't R2 or Ox-heart is immediately consigned down there with those revolting Turpentine Mangoes (only good for chutney) of the Australian Outback!

And that's because the best mangoes on the planet are DEFINITELY to be found in North Queensland and the second best you'll ever taste are in Fiji, no question.  Let me fill you in:

Bowen Mangoes from around the town of Bowen - duh! - in North Queensland were once recognised as the most delicious mangoes anyone anywhere had ever tasted, but the trees didn't produce a lot of fruit so CSIRO (the Australian scientific organisation) went to work to make the trees smaller, more compact and, most importantly, more productive, and thus created a new hybrid they called R2-Bowen which is soooo amazing, so delicious, so sweet-and-tangy, so mouth-watering, that farmers across the North of Australia put in plantations of them, and thus all over NQ even a random road-side stall will be filled with fruit so delicious, so beyond heaven, you'll willingly ruin your best silk blouse to guzzle a half-dozen of them.

And it appears that CSIRO has recently created an even better mango they call "Kennedy" but all the NQ farmers are more than happy with what they've got ... but wouldn't you like to try one of those Kennedys? (Which I have, and which is the point of this post, but you'll have to wait.)

And then, after the success of R2, CSIRO then did the same to Fiji's wonderful Ox-heart Mango, taking these bright claret-red fruit and making them huge while, at the same time, turning the trees into highly-productive dwarfs so picking is a breeze, however you probably don't know them because ... well, we in Fiji aren't as organised as the NQ farmers, so you probably don't even know that mangoes also come in a bright claret-red colour.

So THOSE are the very best mangoes you'll ever eat.  EVER!!! Remember those names: R2-Bowen and Fijian Ox-heart!

However, I have to tell you that a new contender for Thoroughly Wonderful Mangoes has just hit the market for the first time.  I don't know their names but I do know they come from Taiwan and, as of yesterday, you can find them in HK's street markets! And, for the first time ever, here in HK, Keith and I aren't sneering at the mangoes. Let me show you:

 

Taiwanese Mangoes!

See how huge they are? Those are normal-sized apples and see how they're dwarfed by the mangoes?  When I spotted them on a stall yesterday ...

 The giant-mango seller!  See them there

on his stall?

...  I first thought they were pawpaws they were so big, and when I realised what they were I HAD to try them, so got those two above on an eat-today and eat-tomorrow basis because I knew that, even sharing, Keith and I could only get through one per day.

As for the taste, yeah, they're fine.  Sure, they're no R2 or Ox-heart, but they're certainly that sweet-and-tangy combination that will satisfy the less refined mango-palate and those folk-who-don't-know-better.

However, this post is really to tell you the sad sad story about The Best Mango on the Planet!!!

It was in Innisfail in NQ, about a decade back, when a very charming mango-farmer we know dropped by my sister's place carrying a single large orange mango.  "This is a gift for you." he said to me.

It was deep into Mango Season, and I was sorta mango-sated but his face was so sad and serious I had to pretend I was thrilled with this gift.  "It's such a perfect mango!  Thank you so much for it!"

And then he said "Do you mind if I watch you eat it?"

"Yes!!!! What are you? Some kind of mango-pervert?" 

"No! It's not anything like that.  It's just that I've been very very very stupid."

He indeed had the crest-fallen look of someone who'd been foolish so that's a story you want to hear, right?  "What have you done?" I asked.

"Several years back, I planted a single Kennedy so I'd know if the fruit was as good as they claimed, and the first crop came through last year and they were so delicious and sold so well, I decided to see if I could improve on this year's crop ... and so, for the entire year, I've been watering this Kennedy with tonic water. Nothing else. Only tonic water. For an entire year.  Cost me 28 thousand dollars!  Yup, that's what it costs to water a single tree with tonic water for a year.

And then this year's crop came through! Yeah, right!! What crop???  28 thousand dollars I spent on that bloody tree and so far this season I've only had twelve mangoes from it. That comes in at over A$2000 per mango, and no one will pay over $2000 for a single mango, so I'm not trying to sell them. Any that are ripe, I think of some special person who deserves to eat a $2000 mango and I give it to them as a gift."

"And you picked me?"  It was such a special thing for anyone to do, I almost cried.

And so, yes, I let him watch me eat that mango and, yes indeed, it was a mango worth any price. Nectar of the Gods! Watering with tonic water isn't such a foolish thing to do because the sweet-and-tangy flavour literally popped in your mouth and left a strange but delicious lemonade after-taste that was somewhere far beyond heavenly.

In fact, it was so far beyond amazing, and despite it being a very difficult thing to do, I did share it with Keith and family, however I could part with only slithers, just so they too could know the-taste-of-heaven-itself.

And since our lovely mango farmer was planning to never again water anything with tonic water, and because no one else will ever be foolish enough to try it, this surely means that no one else, apart from We Lucky Lucky Twelve and the odd Slither-Worthy around at the time, will ever get to taste this Heaven on Earth that indeed was The Best Mango in the World.

So, having once eaten The Best Mango in the World, I'm sure you'll agree that I've earned the right to be this Vile Mango Snob, and to say "Bah humbug!!!  Turpentine!!" to every other mango in the world!