Californian & Mexican Over Ecuadorian Mangoes

Readers of this blog already know my love of mangoes. I recently picked up a flat of 8 mangoes at my local Costco, which normally has Californian or Mexican mangoes on-hand. It being December, the only place left to get them would be the tropics, and the Costco buyer selected Ecuador for this shipment. Not local, higher carbon foot print, yes yes... but mangoes are irresistible to this Pole.

So these Freska Mangoes (Oxnard CA, 93030, www.freskaproduce.com, USDA Aphis Hot Water treated lot 801, item # 83303, UPC 033383402116) are all very hard and un-ripe when I bring them home, so I leave them to sit on the kitchen counter. You can tell a good mango's ripeness by the smell, with a deep inhale. These were far from ripe. Then, 2 days later, BAM, 2 of the 8 started to soften and turn to mush suddenly. I rushed the remaining 6 into the fridge, and cut up to salvage what I could of the suddenly overly ripened fruits. I found them to be rather flavorless, fibrous, and just not very spectacular mangoes, compared to the Daniella Mexican mangoes last September. Over the next week, one by one, I brought out each of the remaining 6, having hope for each fruit that visually appeared to be fine, almost - sorta smelled maybe ripe, but was disappointed with each new slicing.

Californian & Mexican Over Ecuadorian mangoes, any day. The shipping time, logistics, and early picking, probably have much to do with the lack of ripeness, lack of deliciousness, and inferior quality. Next time, I'll know better.

Papaya? Papay-no.

Before Christmas, I was shopping for Mexican Mangoes at Costco, and found none - Northern Hemisphere growing season was over, only South American growers offered Mangoes and others fresh produce.  Not wanting to encourage high carbon foot print transcontinental fruit consumption, I did not purchase the Peruvian Mangoes Costco had.

Costco DID have Papaya from Belize.  They were HUGE.  That's an 8 inch (203 mm) blade shown in the photo to the left, on my largest Schnitzelbank (cutting board).  I'd never brought or prepared a papaya before, so I contacted my friend Dr.Claudia, who used to summer in Columbia as a child for suggestions.  To my surprise, Dr.C didn't like papaya either - though she does share my love of mango - but she contacted her mother who is a strong papaya advocate.


Her advice:
- Don't eat the bitter skin, though it Does have significant health benefits.
- Don't eat the bitter seeds
- Cut up the pink-orange meaty pulp into bite sized pieces
- Serve with other fruit (which initially confused me... since mango is great all by itself).  Honey or other sweet toppings are optional.
- Enjoy the health benefits of eating papaya

The proteolytic enzymes which are rich in papaya assist in digestion.  My reasonable acupuncturist, who is a vegetarian but understands not everyone wants to be one or can be one also recommends eating papaya or taking papaya enzyme tablets after eating meat.  Many Thai restaurants shred the skins of papaya to make "salad" which has a nearly instantaneous and powerful effect of sometimes sending non-Thai diners like myself directly to the rest room, it works so well in "aiding digestion", so I was careful to skin off all the fibrous skin.

So I got the massive fruit all chopped up while Dr Desert Flower was at work and our son was visiting / recuperating with us in our home, and prepared several bowls of fruit salad using some canned Trader Joe's mandarin oranges (from Spain, not from China) I had in the back of the pantry, and a bag of frozen cubed mango which I'd nearly forgotten we had in the bottom of the freezer, bought over a year ago.  Having no whipped cream, I opted for a dollop of Cool Whip on each bowl.

How well did it work?  Eh.  Dr Desert Flower wouldn't finish hers, and picked out the pink papaya pieces.  Our son said succinctly "It tastes like medicine".  Honestly, I had to agree with him.

The sweetest part of the fruit, immediately adjacent to the seed pocket cavity, were "slightly sweet" and palatable.  Once you moved a 1/2 inch away from the center, the meat was bitter, and unpleasant.  yes, it's very possible this was not the world's most ripe papaya, but I'd let it sit for 3 weeks, immediately beside the bananas to share the ethylene oxide out-gassing in a futile attempt to hasten the ripening.  Somewhere between harvest and kitchen, my papaya was dropped, as evidenced by a dark bruised area that began to locally "rot" in a one inch oval, so waiting to cut it up was not an option.

I scooped out the remaining papaya pieces, and put them on a plate under the hummingbird feeders, hoping to entice the Gila Woodpecker who frequents our feeders to enjoy the tropical fruit.  He showed no interest in the plate of pink pulp, and after 3 weeks of 'drying in the Arizona air', defeated, I tossed the mummified papaya-turned-desiccant into the trash heap.

Mangoes? Yes.  Papaya? Papay-No.  I won't be attempting another papaya culinary creation again.

Daniella Mangoes

Maybe it's because I spent several years in Jr High and High School working evenings and weekends making boxes at the print & lithography shop where my dad used to work (next to WJOB's radio tower in Hammond), maybe it's just a heightened awareness of food safety, perhaps it's my aging focus on personal health, or maybe it's some combination therein, but I've been noticing how the produce I've been buying has been increasingly well marked.

I recently picked up a flat of a dozen Mexican Mangoes at Costo for $9.
Daniella Mangos, Variety Kent, Item 83303, bar code 6-0454612750-6, lot 229928, grown and packed by Agricola Daniella, Tel (668)... Fax(668)... El Porvenir, Ahome, Sin, www.agricoladaniella.com.mx
then
Distributed by Splendid Products, 1011 Cadilla Way, Burlingame CA, 94010, ph (650)... www.splendidproducts.com
with a side note of
"primuslabs.com, when food safety counts"

The mangoes are fantastic - ripe, juicy, tasty, succulent. 3 consumed, 9 in the fridge to slow down the rest of the ripening process. Had they been sub-par, or contaminated somehow, or recalled, there is no shortage of clear labeling to identify this flat, in this lot, in this shipment, to this store, in this state. Nice to see effective product marking is beginning to catch up with modern living.

Medjool over Deglet Noor, Anyday

Growing up in the Midwest, and living in the South East for the last 40 years, I didn't have much exposure to delicious fresh dates. Moving to Phoenix, we have a COSTCO within walking distance, that has Californian and Mexican dates, in bulk, readily available. I've come to learn that Medjool dates are amazing, perfect snacks, tasty, plump, savory, in a word "Yum!". Deglet Noor on the other hand, resemble palmetto bug exoskeletons in color, texture, & crunchiness. They're relatively tasteless, and yield about 1/100th the papillae enjoyment when eaten. Occassionally, in a batch of Deglet Noors, you find a semi-squished, darker, tasty one, but it's just trying to mutate into a Medjool.

I've stopped my prior consumption of decades worth of pop-tarts, granola bars, cereal bars, caribou coffee bars, and other processed snacks, as I've recently been reading "An Eaters Manifesto" by Michael Pollan - it's really a good book. I now have things like dates, dried apricots, apples, cashews, mangoes, bananas, water, water with lemon (lemons grown organically in my own back yard, future posts here to include pics later this week). Arizona's geographic location near CA, TX, and Mexico, as well as Phoenix being a major market, provides much fresher and healthier nutritional choices.

My Wallet Votes For Costco and Trader Joe's, Not Whole Foods

Last week, the day before Whole Foods (or as Dr Desert Flower and I call it, "Whole Paycheck") CEO Right Winger John Mackey told Americans that health care reform is not needed, they just need to 'shop at Whole Foods', I went to Costco, and got my favorite Medjool dates, clementine oranges, Mexican mangoes, organic spinach, macadamia nuts, peanuts, cashews, Ketel One Vodka, etc. The smiling, enthusiastic, helpful workers at Costco are consistently friendly and customer centric - I've asked the cashiers upon checkout on several occasions what they think of working at Costco, and universally, they've had very positive responses. It's almost like a cult, but in a good way.

The next day, I get an email from my buddy Matt about Mackey's public statements and previous machinations and then I hear of the fall out from Whole Food's loyal customers, a large percentage of whom are very disillusioned with such anti-progressive, self-serving, CEO comments. Mackey's statements are par for the course, as he tries to prop up his sagging stock, sells off a million dollars of it, and then pisses off his activist customer base. It'll be interesting to see if the activist boycott degrades Whole Foods sales revenue in August & September, or if it's alot of noise without any substance. My money is on Costco and Trader Joe's - where employees are happy and the merchandise is desirable and healthy - and Farmer's Markets. Sprouts is also a good buy, but it's a 8 mile drive for us to get there =\.

Absolutely Rotten Mango

Earlier this year, I bought a bottle of Absolute Mango vodka for Dr Desert Flower.  She wanted Citron, and Total Wine was out of Citron that day.  We both love the taste of mangoes, so I thought, "why not?" The Mango Absolute was a mistake.  Our bottle carried a pungent aftertaste reminiscent of what a kitchen garbage can smells like the day after you throw away a bunch of orange peels.  There's a acrid, revolting, intrusive scent and acidic lingering taste that took a great deal of cranberry and stevia to over-power.  It's never a good idea to drink something whose taste you need to "over-power" or "over-whelm".

I won't be making the same mistake again, of buying or drinking Absolute Mango.  If you enjoy the biting taste, stinging scent, and lingering "ewwwww" on your tongue that is similar to rotting orange peels, then this beverage may be for you.

Mmmmaple Bacon, From Canada

I picked up this very tasty bacon at COSTCO in January. Comes as as two pack. The first package baptized my new cast iron skillet and bacon press, filled my home with the delicious scent of maple syrup, and provided more than a week's worth of delicious pork produced protein.

The second package (pictured to the right) I cooked last week, and enjoyed it over the last 6 days. Yeah, the Maple Leaf brand does have some sugar in it, but my goodness, it is tasty! And it's so unhealthy, I am now below my 95Kg marriage weight - 16 Kgs lighter than I was eating carbs last summer, my blood work test results are better than they've been in decades, and I feel more energetic and youthful than anytime since my son finished junior high school. Organic apples, 75% cocoa dark chocolate, French & Italian wines (some of them organic, when I can find them), local mangoes, French & Italian & British cheeses, organic celery, carrots, romaine, spinach, hummus, soups... this is not as hard as I thought it was going to be!

Large Eggs - and save the bacon grease!

I was getting into the habit of buying medium brown eggs, organically fed, free range - "cage free" is bogus, since you can easily have 10,000 chickens in the same "cage free" yard, all with beaks removed, so they don't peck each other to death (ew). Dr Desert Flower started getting the Large variety, and as I've been cooking with them, it's amazing to me how much more egg volume is really in a large egg vs a medium one. Wolframalpha proved itself useful, and handily told me just how much larger the large eggs are, and much more info unexpectedly as well, here (egg) and here (large egg). [I thought Ron and Steve might find this handy, as a public service announcement as well]

I've also begun storing up my bacon fat for cooking later, letting it cool to less than 120F before putting it in resealable refrigerator containers. Reduce, re-use, recycle, and constantly avoid those annoying carbs. I was down by 9 lbs before vacation, but Wailana's pancakes helped to fatten 1/2 of that back on. Eating bacon, eggs, ham, sausage, jerky, cashews, celery, humus, cucumbers, romaine, iceberg, spinach, gruyere, gouda, stilton, ham, occasionally brie, raclette, organic chicken, carne & pollo asada (no shortage of those in Phoenix), and some fish here & there I'll get double that 9 off again soon. As long as I can moderate my dates, mangoes & chocolate (all very high carb) and wash it down with "not too much" red wine. Lots of tea, and coffee laced with stevia to keep the mind sharp and awake. Blood sugars are also nicely stabilized this week, being home again (and without $10 Mai Tais) and able to work out regularly without having to pay $20... but that is the next posting! =)

Mango Slicing & Skin Considerations

To conclude my delicious lunch today, I had a yummy Mexican mango, sliced with a very sharp knife. Living in AZ has it's geographical proximity advantages, with Mexico and California, bringing in reasonably priced fresh produce (only 88 cents, not bad).

As I discarded the dark, thick mango skin, and shaved as close to the massive ovalesque pit for the light orange sweetness, I wondered 1) "does anyone eat the skin?" and 2) "is there a better way to cut these things up?"

Well, a few google searches later, I found the answer to # 2 - I was cutting it in the optimum way, and I learned a few new techniques too, here, here and here. the answer to # 1, has mixed results. Some people say it helps in digestion, some say it helps to avoid stomach cancer (unsubstantiated), some say it lowers cholesterol (again, unsubstantiated by science), but others say they dispose of the skin due to its toughness and in an effort to avoid pesticides and dirt that may remain on the waxy, very thick skin. I've tried washing mangoes, it's not so easy to get them pristine on the thick reddish skinned ones, and they frequently don't look so good despite the fruit meat beneath being absolutely delicious! The yellow Asian mangos, with the thinner skin

If you frequently enjoy eating the skins, or if you have legitimate reasons why you would not want to ever eat the skin, please comment here, and let me know. I'd like to hear your perspective.