It’s Raining Tropical Fruit
Every spring, like clockwork, we arrive at the time of year when half the neighbors are guarding their mango trees like an occupying security force and the other half are thrusting plastic sack-fulls at everyone they see.
Avocado season will be arriving soon and with it a similar level of guarding, but most trees don’t produce quite enough for every office kitchen to suddenly be piled with them. Starfruit trees generate a similar level of abundance if you are lucky enough to know someone who has one, but they aren’t as popular in yards as mangos.
Summer in South Florida is the rainy season. It’s also tropical fruit season.
Back when the rest of the country had snow or at least a light frost, my neighbor’s tomato plants hung heavy because she’s used to the bizzarro-world growing season and had her seeds germinating before putting up the holiday decorations.
I am not one of those people. I have been trying to remember to start the tomatoes and peppers and squash in November or December for about ten years and I can assure you it has not happened yet.
I also have not planted a mango tree, which does not mean I do not end up with a pile of mangos each summer.
Mangos have a lot of fans. Even the mostly-local fast food chicken chain has limited-time mango-themed dishes with an advertisement that begins with someone using a pool skimmer to try stealing a mango from the neighbors. The implication, that everyone loves mangos, definitely has some evidentiary support. Hari Kondabolu tells viewers of his @NetflixIsAJoke special (“Warn Your Relatives” that “Indian people love mangos.” He elaborates that his family and friends “will sit around in a circle…, not saying a word to each other, just eating mangos.” Hasan Minhaj seconds the Indian love for mangos in a Patriot Act YouTube clip in which he answers questions from the Subtle Asian Traits Facebook group.
“If you’ve had Indian Mangos, you know there’s no comparison. Specifically, Alfonso mangos are pretty dope. I’ve been spoiled. I’ve had mangos in the motherland and when you come backto the United States of America, you’re like continental US mangos suck. Go to Asia and have mangos. Your life will never be the same,” Minhaj says.
Yet, aside from Connie Ogle at the Miami Herald, South Floridians seem to love the fruit. Then again, given how Ogle describes the fruit, it seems she’s been eating the more fibrous varieties common in US grocery stores, which is also a commonly-cultivated type in South Florida.
Of course, not all growers — either with a tree in the yard or small grove — have the same kind of mango and mangos, as Minhaj alludes, come in a lot of varieties. A lot. As in it’s been estimated there are 1000 cultivators of mangos in India alone and the USDA facility in Coral Gables (in South Florida) has catalogued about 400 mango varieties.
The oldest known mango tree in Miami dates back to the 1800s when two Missouri natives planted it in their Biscayne Bay yard after buying some small plants from a grower in West Palm Beach (located about 90 miles north of Miami). After John Haden died, his wife, Florence noticed one tree really taking off. In the hundred years since, the Hayden mango variety has taken over a lot of South Florida (though not all are called Hayden).
Confused yet? Yeah, I was too. Especially since I have never noticed the difference between mangos. I’ve had mangos from random trees around the neighborhood and from various fruit stands and grocery stores. I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference in either “fiber” content or sweetness. Fiber gets mentioned a lot when people discuss mango varieties, but I’ve noticed different websites can’t seem to agree on the amount of fiber in particular varieties. People also have very strong opinions about the fiber content (and the description of it). Too stringy, too chewy, too mushy, etc.
People also have a lot of opinions about mangos in general and a lot of those depend on where they live. Aside from people with a connection to India and other Asian nations, people with a cultural background or affiliation with many Caribbean countries also tend to love mangos and have varietal preferences.
Varieties like Toledo and Prieto are popular and many people in Cuba, as well as many Cubans in South Florida, have mango trees in yards or around their homes. Mangos aren’t endemic to the Caribbean or Southern Florida, but at this point it certainly feels that way.
Mangos arrived in Cuba during the 1700s, supposedly from Jamaica. Reports of mangos in other islands around the Caribbean Sea date back to the 1700s and early 1800s as explorers, exploiters, and colonizers arrived. As a tropical fruit native to tropical Asia, mangos flourished in the American tropics, including the subtropical areas of Southern Florida. The dry and wet seasons experienced in the Florida Keys, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties are similar to the dry and monsoon seasons in India, and while mango trees in more tropical areas will bloom and fruit sporadically throughout the year, the wet-dry pattern produces spring and summer fruit similar to India.
The difference is in the seeds.
One reason there are so many mango varieties is the way the trees grow. Mangos have two different seed types and propagation results vary between the two. Monoembryonic sees are smaller, meaning more fruit flesh and less seed, and produce a single seedling that is a genetic blend of the mother tree and the pollinating tree. The resulting tree might be inferior to the parent tree or superior, but will be slightly different. This means cultivators can potentially end up with a lot of different varieties and choose which ones to promote or recreate through grafting (using a cutting from the desired parent tree rather than a seed).
Polyembryonic seeds contain the genetic information from both parent trees in one embryo just like the monoembryonic, but also contain embryos from the parent tree meaning It’s possible to create copies of the mother. Cultivators find this useful for a variety of reasons, but these differences combined with the ability to graft cultivators onto rootstock of another genomic type is why there are so many different kinds of mangos.
Depending on where you live, though, you might not have had much opportunity to try more than a handful. The United States imports most of its commercial mangos from Mexico, Haiti (of which roughly 95% of exports are the “Madame Franciquea”), Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, and Jamaica (which exports a variety called “Julie”), among others. The rest of the US also imports a small percentage of its mangos from Florida, which is the only provider who doesn’t have to subject the fruit to heat or quarantine to eliminate pests and fungus. Shipping times, packaging requirements, and heat treatment mean the commercially-available varieties, even those from Florida, have to be sturdier often with thicker skin, and an ability to ripen once picked. (For example, the “Carrie” from Boynton Beach, Florida needs to ripen on the tree making it undesirable for far destinations.)
Being in the tropics, technically the subtropics, is a bit weird when it comes to things like “grilling season” advertising and “plant your garden now” reminders from big home improvement stores. Patio season, camping season, and outdoor activity season is largely winter in South Florida, except for snorkeling, diving, and trips to the beach. Most locals I know stay out of the ocean until late spring because it’s just too cold. That doesn’t stop honestly us from walking the beach, plopping our butts down in the sand, or other beach activities.
By late July, most of the neighborhood still smells of frangipani flowers but they’ve been joined by overripe, rotting mangos as people who were in love with the fruit the month before realize they’ve run out of recipes and freezer space. Running in the early mornings becomes an obstacle course dodging decaying mangos, the pits left behind by animals, and the ever-present coconuts and palm fronds that litter sidewalks and driveways.
Avocados and star fruit, also known as carambola, also start appearing in breakroom piles around South Florida during the summer, but generally in far less volume. Avocados, incidentally, will keep longer in the refrigerator, though the most prevalent Florida variety is both larger and milder than the familiar Hass avocado. Like mangos, most of the Florida avocado varieties have relatives in the Caribbean and India.
My avocado tree made its first this year, but something gnawed a hole in it before it finished ripening. My local farming expert tells me next year should be a decent harvest if a storm doesn’t decimate it like Irma did a few years ago.
My avocado tree has Indian roots, too, producing big, glossy green fruit rather than the small bumpy Hass type seen in most grocery stores. Outside Florida, many may not even recognize it as an avocado and those that do often describe the variety as too mild.
On the other hand, most years my pineapple patch yields at least two small pineapples with little-to-no effort on my part. Our starfruit tree died, but our neighbors’ is currently so overloaded that branches are failing in a light breeze. While they were out of town, their parents ate a pile of starfruit, we took a pile of starfruit, I left them a pile of starfruit, and I essentially blanketed their chicken coop with starfruit. I could not talk anyone else into starfruit because anyone with a tree — or who knows someone with a tree — already has more starfruit than they know what to do with.
Well, unless they start making carambola wine, carambola being another name for starfruit. Many years ago I had the pleasure of trying some carambola wine at a winery down in Redlands, FL and, despite not really being a fan of sweet wines or white wines, it was lovely, crisp and a bit like a tropical chardonnay.
In other words, a perfect drink for summer in the subtropics. Or tropics, if you believe scientists who argue the designation should be more about the plant species that can thrive rather than a specific average temperature or distance from the equator. Whatever scientists call it, the mugginess and vegetation changes little between Fort Lauderdale and Key West, the most noticeable differences being between the ocean and the Everglades rather than latitude.
Running this morning in the 90% humidity, because apparently I’m trying to evolve gills, the sidewalks were slick with a carpet of spent Royal Poinciana blossoms and the heady aroma of frangipani flowers was beginning to fade. Yard pineapples are yellowing and getting picked, slowly disappearing from the landscape until next year.
The rainy season is in full force, but the breezes from the nearest tropical storm are lovely when one isn’t trying to run into them. At least, as long as one isn’t too close to a late-summer mango.
