Bury St Edmunds food writer Nicola Miller seeks out a refreshing mangonada in New Orleans as childhood memories flood back
A mango fork looks deadly. Shaped like Poseidon’s trident, its elongated central prong is designed to be rammed into a mango until a purchase is gained on its pit allowing one to upturn the fruit and peel off the rind as you might a banana before eating the whole thing popsicle-style.
It’s important to leave the mango’s rind on until it is safely impaled, because a skinned mango is an incredibly slippery beast and almost impossible to spear once naked.
When I was a kid, street sellers sold mangos peeled in this way, impaled on wooden sticks rather than the stainless steel forks I use at home. We’d buy ours on the way back from school, sometimes choosing to eat our mango chopped in a bag or served as a fruit cup, but always doused with Tajín Clásico (a blend of dried lime, chilli and salt) and chamoy (a salty-sweet, hot and sour dried fruit-based sauce with Asian roots).
Sometimes the vendors would carve the mango into the shape of a flower and its ‘petals’ would trap the chamoy-stained juices, but we still made a mess. Usefully, my summer school uniform included a brown check loose pinafore to be thrown over our clothing; this saved our household a lot of extra washing.
Chamoy is a Mexican creation made from ingredients and techniques brought to North America from Southeast Asia. Sold in bottles as a thin, pourable sauce, it has evolved quite considerably from its ancestors: the Chinese salty dried apricot snack known as ‘see mui’; champóy in the Philippines (made with sour dried plums brought to the country by Hokkien migrants from China); and umeboshi, Japanese pickled sour plums.
In Mexico, the dried cured fruit is sold as ‘saladitos’ and the leftover liquid from its curing process forms the base of bottled chamoy. One of my first columns offered recipes for chunky chamoy-style salsas, but should you wish to make a thinner chamoy using these recipes, I recommend blending the ingredients until they are completely smooth - adding more liquid if necessary. Otherwise, bottled chamoy (and Tajín Clásico) can be bought online from suppliers of Mexican groceries.
One of Mexico's most popular mangos is the Ataúlfo because of its sweetly floral, creamy non-fibrous flesh. A descendant of Carabao, a cultivar from the Philippines which arrived in the country via the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, Mexican farmers crossed the Carabao with other varieties to produce the Ataúlfo. In 2003, it received protection via a Denomination of Origin issued through Mexico’s Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial. Only Ataulfo mangoes grown in Chiapan municipalities can use this name.
It’s hard to find Ataúlfo mangos in the UK but we have beautiful fruit from Pakistan and India instead, all of which are suitable to eat au naturel, turned into lassis (mango yoghurt drinks), or in this case. . . a Mexican mangonada.
At its simplest and most traditional a mangonada is made with softly-frozen mango purée, chamoy and chunks of fresh mango dusted with Tajín. I love it this way, but on an extremely hot day in New Orleans this May, I walked from the Bywater to Felipes Heladeria in Mid-City after hearing about their mangonada which is made with froyo (frozen yoghurt).
Inside a spotless room air-conditioned to the point of nearly being able to see my breath, I watched as a transparent sippy cup was swirled with chamoy then filled with frozen mango yoghurt and layers of fresh mango, dusted with Tajín and speared with a tamarind and chilli-coated straw. As you can see from my photo, it is pure drama and a perfect drink for hot, electrolyte-depleted people.
Mangonadas are flexible when it comes to preparation. Sometimes I whisk together 600g of full-fat thick Greek yoghurt with 400g of canned mango purée and 75g of caster sugar until well combined, churn this in an ice cream maker as per instructions or pour into a container and place it in the freezer. After 90 minutes in the freezer, take it out and beat it well with a fork; this helps prevent the formation of ice crystals. Repeat this process every 20 minutes, at least three times.
Your other option is to buy a 500ml tub of Mango and Passionfruit Kefir Frozen Yoghurt from M&S or Waitrose’s No1 Mango and Passionfruit Ice Cream and beat in 330g of mango purée before refreezing, but if you can find a tub of frozen mango yoghurt, mango kulfi or plain mango ice cream, this is even better.
To prepare your glasses, pour some chamoy onto a flat plate and sprinkle a decent layer of Tajín onto another. Dip the rims of your glasses into the chamoy followed by the Tajín so they are coated. Now ladle a few teaspoons of chamoy into the base of each glass and gently swirl the glass until it stripily coats the sides.
The amount of chamoy you use will depend on the size of your glass. Spoon in enough chunks of fresh mango to cover the base of each glass and squeeze over some lime juice then add enough mango froyo to half-fill the glass. Spoon over more mango chunks and squeeze a little fresh lime over these. Sprinkle with Tajín and more chamoy then continue to fill the glass with froyo until full. Garnish with more chunks of mango, another dusting of Tajín, a dash of chamoy and insert a straw.
The tamarind and chilli-coated straws used by Felipes aren’t easy to buy in the UK, but many online Mexican food suppliers sell tamarind candies. Look for Pelon Pelo Rico Tamarind Pulp, Vero Paleta Enchilada de Mango which you can use as an edible decoration, mango Skwinkles (little bendy chamoy and tamarind-flavoured sticks that you can dip into your mangonada) or Banderilla Hots.
You can keep your mangonada relatively unadorned or go completely mad and garnish it with whatever you see fit. How many glasses this fills is entirely dependent on their size. As I said, a mangonada is formed from a set of loose instructions rather than an order.
