Eating St Helena Mangoes

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You know when you’ve been Mangoed!

Arrrr, the juicy, sweet, golden deliciousness that is mangoes.  We couldn’t get enough of them when we were kids. We spent hours as kids climbing trees and eating mangoes over the school holidays.  I remember collecting armfuls of mangoes from up Chubbs Spring.

On our recent trip back to St Helena this year, we were so excited to find that the house we were renting was right in the middle of a mango plantation.   While waking up in the early hours to a gentle thud of ripe fruit falling from the tree wasn’t always the alarm clock you’d hope for on holiday… but oh, how sweet the breakfast you got to enjoy that morning.  A personal highlight from the trip, was our little girl Isla getting to taste fresh mangoes for the first time ever. To see the pure glee in her widened eyes as she bit into fruit almost as big as her head was worth every bit of sticky sweet mess to clean up afterwards.  She really enjoyed her mangoes!

The closest we’ve found in taste and texture in the UK to the mangoes we get on St Helena are the ones you find in African shops – flown in from West Africa.  They worth the journey to find if feeling a little homesick for mangoes. The ones you get in the large supermarkets just don’t cut it.

EJ

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