AHHH – MANGO SEASON
The smell is the first thing that catches your attention. You are walking around the fruit shop and there it is – and a flood of happy memories come drifting through your consciousness.
My earliest memory is when my grandparents lived in North Queensland. Everyone had a mango tree in their back yard up there. Grandpa would fill a wooden packing case with mangoes for us and send them down on the train.
Off we would go in our little red Morris car to collect them from Roma St Station. This car was a 2 door model with a canvas hood. We begged Mum to drive with the hood down but she never did. It had no roll up windows, so if it rained it was a scramble to get the canvas trimmed Perspex windows from behind the back seat and screw them in place on the doors.
There was no key to start these cars – just a knob that you pulled. If that didn’t work (but it usually did) you had to put the crank handle in the hole in the front grille and use all your muscle to turn it.
Another thing we tend to forget is that indicator lights were a thing of the future. If you were going to stop or turn, the driver indicated with an arm out the side.
But back to the mangoes. How we enjoyed them! No grafted fruit then – just the old fashioned sort with strings that you pulled through your teeth ( bit hard if the front two were missing) to get the last bit of juice. We’d probably turn our nose up at them since we’ve been spoilt by all the delicious new varieties, but they were part of our enjoyable summers.
Watermelons were another fruit available only in summer. They were a special treat at the beach at Christmas time. Seedless varieties had yet to make their appearance but that bothered no-one.
We have mango trees growing here now, and like the figs Aunt Mary wrote about, my husband has to fight the birds and animals for them. Consequently he picks them when still green. But they have ripened beautifully and we can enjoy them year round thanks to the wonderful invention of the freezer.
Grandpa’s had to be kept in the ice chest when they ripened!
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