The Divine Mango: Dining with the Gods and My New Favorite Cookbook

The divine mango has to be at least one of the foods of the gods! Sweet, juicy, dense, and creamy, its fruit is tantalizing and addictive–whether you’re looking for something to add to your oatmeal or want to make a fancy sauce for dinner. Although my backyard mango tree is still young and small, it yielded an abundant crop this year which has not only kept me in delectable snacks for a whole month but which has also filled a shelf in my pantry with mango goodies to be enjoyed and shared until next year’s crop appears.

And that brings me to the second part of the title: my new favorite cookbook! I did some canning many years ago when my two sons were toddlers and I took a few years to stay home with them. But after resuming a full-time teaching schedule, my canning equipment was moved to my mom’s attic. But now retirement–and a good mango crop–has rekindled my interest; so my good friend and chef extraordinaire, Bevi, recommended the excellent book Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry, by Cathy Barrow.

The book is beautifully laid out, with lots of lavish color photographs; it contains easy-to-follow instructions for quality and safety in canning; and the recipes–the most important part–are to die for. In addition to the canning and preserving recipes, she’s inserted “bonus recipes” throughout the book, such as “Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Perfect Piecrust,” on page 133. I haven’t tried that one yet, but you can bet I will! Here’s another bonus recipe I can’t wait to try: “Beet Salad with Orange and Candied Pecans” on page 257. Yummmm

The recipes I used to preserve my mango crop are “Strawberry Mango Jam” (page 63), “Mango Chutney” (page 104), and “Carmen Miranda Tropical Fruit Preserves” (page 110). All of these can be processed by the water bath method, which makes them even easier.

The strawberry-mango jam is a simple but delicious combo of mangoes, strawberries, sugar, and a little lemon juice. So far, these have been the favorite among friends and neighbors.

Mango chutney is a more savory condiment, excellent on chicken and fish as well as a long list of other recommendations (page 105). Mangoes, onion, garlic, crystallized ginger, golden raisins, dried sour cherries, mustard seeds, kosher salt, cider vinegar, brown sugar, and hot chiles add layers of flavor which I can only imagine will improve with age (in the jars).

The Carmen Miranda Tropical Fruit Preserves are an enticing combination of mangoes, papaya, lemon juice, lime juice and zest, sugar, crystallized ginger, dark rum, coriander seeds, and black pepper. She had me at rum! This is one of those “spreads” that you’ll be tempted to grab a spoon and eat straight from the jar. I made the first batch by the recipe. When I was shopping for ingredients for the second batch, the store I was in didn’t have papayas. I knew another store would almost surely have them but really wasn’t in the mood to make more stops, AND oh, look, peaches! There in front of me was a display of beautiful ripe peaches, and I thought of those rather bland papayas and these juicy, bright peaches; and before I knew it, I was loading up a couple of bags. This recipe just went from really good to amazingly awesome! I will substitute peaches for papaya every time!

The book is available on Amazon, its current price is $23.33, and it has my enthusiastic seal of approval!