Mango Mania!

Mangoes are on sale! We're nearing the end of the season so they are marked down to move them out of the stores before they turn into a rotten mess of sticky fruit. There is a specific smell that I describe as "Mexican grocery store," which can be experienced from a bottle of Chardonnay to a pile of garbage, and stems from an amalgam of papaya, mango, melon over-ripeness. It's heady and knocks me off my feet whenever I catch a whiff. But I digress. The idea of a rotten mango just sends me over the edge.

Anyway, a few days ago I bought a whole mess of mangoes, medium and bite-sized. This happened to coincide with my mom buying me Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours. (I just couldn't stand not having this tome that so many great food bloggers reference.) While have to wait a few months before looking at it in person, my mom has flipped through noting some good recipes, and the first one she mentioned to me was for Fresh Mango Bread.

Divine culinary intervention, saving me from rotten mangoes!

For anyone unsure of how to cut this slippery, strangely shaped fruit, the best way is to slice the sides off the pit, score them, and then slice the flesh away from the skin.


The recipe is a basic quick bread with the addition of dried ginger, lemon zest, and two cups of diced mangoes. It calls for quite a bit of flour, and the dough seemed dry going in the pan, but the moisture of the mangoes counteracts what might have been dry, tough bread. Instead, it came out of the oven fragrant and nicely browned. The whole bread is brown actually, though I did not use any whole wheat flour. It even tastes healthy, with the mangoes acting as nice bits of moist surprise, almost like a built-in jam.


No rotten mangoes in this house! In fact, I might make another loaf to freeze.