What is it with mangoes? One glorious post about the mother of all mangoes and suddenly they’re everywhere. Case in point. Visiting friends kindly brought me a jar of mango chutney. Fair enough, and much appreciated. But look closely at the label.
How many shoppers at Sainsbury are even aware that there are different varieties of mango? And do they, like me, rush to the interwebs to discover, for example, that Malda comes from around Malda in West Bengal, and that just last week there were further reports of urban development cutting into Malda mango plantations in Digha.? Search for Totapuri mango, by contrast, and you get lots of listings of people who want to sell you processed pulp. ((Could it be something to do with the Totapuri who “taught Ramakrishna that the sole reality of the impersonal Absolute could only be realized in a state of consciousness devoid of all conceptual forms”? there is at least a physical resemblance.)) I’m betting, then, that Sainsbury’s finest is mostly Totapuri with a smidgen of Malda thrown in. But I’m willing to be corrected. Not that there’s much real estate left on the label to do so.