It’s mango season in India, and the vendor pushcarts are overflowing with colorful mounds of this nation’s juicy and wildly diverse “king of fruit.”
There’s the Alphonso, a small, yellow mango that is among the nation’s sweetest, and the Khattu, with its reddish-tinged skin. The Langda, a roundish golden variety, is a Delhi favorite, but the Hamam, a big yellow fruit, and the Kesar, smallish and green-tinged, have their devotees as well. And those are just a few of the June varieties; by September, when the summer mango season ends, India’s groves of tall, green mango trees will have offered up more than 1,000 varieties.
“Indians have sweet tastes, and when the mangoes come to market, we are all eating them, every day,” said A.K. Singh, a mango expert at New Delhi’s Indian Agricultural Research Institute. Of the 12 million tons of mangoes the country produces each year — nearly 60 percent of the world’s total — virtually all get eaten at home.
The good news for Americans is that a share of the other 1 percent of India’s production is now hitting U.S. store shelves, as part of a new trade agreement that lifts an 18-year ban on imports of Indian mangoes.
On Devon Avenue, the stretch of sari stores, spice shops and restaurants that is home to Chicago’s Indian community, a bright yellow sign at the Patel Brothers grocery announces the long-awaited arrival: INDIAN MANGOES AVAILABLE.
Within, alongside the long-imported Mexican and South American varieties, the store now offers Indian Alphonsos and Kesars. The newcomers cost $35 to $40 for a box of 12, compared with just $6 for a box of nine Mexican mangoes.
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Sweeter, less fibrous
That has scarcely deterred Chicago’s Indian-American mango lovers, enthralled to finally sink their teeth into India’s iconic summer fruit, widely considered sweeter and less fibrous than Latin American varieties.
“This is what a mango is supposed to taste like,” said Swetal Patel, vice president of sales for Raja Foods in Skokie, which imports 1,000 to 1,200 boxes of mangoes every other day for distribution to the 40 Patel Brothers stores in the Chicago area and beyond. “The customers buy a box and walk out gleefully happy.”
India began shipping mangoes to U.S. markets in late April, after the two countries reached a trade deal allowing the entry of fruit irradiated before shipment to kill the mango seed weevil, an Indian pest that could threaten U.S. melon crops.
India, at the same time, agreed to begin importing one of America’s own icons — the Harley-Davidson motorcycle — after easing tight emissions standards that earlier kept the bike out of India.
The mango deal was reportedly pushed not only by officials eager to boost U.S.-India trade — which has been growing at more than 25 percent a year — but by U.S. diplomats who had spent time in India and missed the fruit.
“We hope [this] is going to help generate a whole bunch of goodwill and lead to a deeper trade relationship,” said Ron Somers, president of the United States-India Business Council. The two countries hope to boost trade from a current $30 billion a year to $60 billion within two years.
The United States, which is the world’s biggest mango importer, plans to allow 420,000 tons of the Indian fruit into the market this year, according to the Indian Embassy in Washington.
Working on new varieties
Indian mango experts, encouraged by the trade opening, are already working on new varieties for the U.S. market. Americans, accustomed to shiny, red-tinged Latin American varieties, are sometimes reluctant to buy duller yellow and green mangoes, so scientists hope to find redder Indian species, or improve the red tint of existing ones, to broaden their appeal in the U.S. market.
Singh, a fruit scientist in Delhi, thinks the Rakma mango, a yellow and slightly pink mango from Gujarat that is rapidly gaining popularity in India, could soon surpass the prized yellow Alphonso in sales overseas.
If Americans can be persuaded to try Indian mangoes, he’s confident they won’t want anything else in their milkshakes, fruit salads or Asian fusion recipes. “If you eat these, you’ll forget the mangoes from Mexico,” he said.
At Patel Brothers stores in Chicago, customers were still sizing up the new Indian offerings, displayed at the front of the store.
“I saw it as soon as we walked in,” Asim Roy of Naperville said. But the shipment was of Kesar mangoes, rather than his favorite Langdas, due later in the season. He ultimately decided to wait.
“Thirty-five dollars is a bit much for me. But this is the best,”