This weekend was the annual mango festival in New Delhi.Jon and I had just returned home this morning on an overnight train back from Benares (more on that later).
We had seen signs for the mango festival around Delhi, but what we hadn't noticed was that the festival was not at the "normal" Dilli haat (near INA for those of you in the general Delhi know). Oh no, this Dilli haat was up at the end of the red line, another hour by metro, almost outside of the city, near Pitampura. Well, an hour and a half metro ride? Nothing I say shall keep us from an audience with the "King of Fruits" (and no, I'm not talking about myself here).
Was it a Royal Treat? Or a Royal-Let-Down? We said to each other-"Selves, as long as there are mangoes how bad can it be?" Well....there were mangoes...500+ varieties of them!
In addition, they had all sorts of mango products, like chutneys and kulfi (Indian ice cream)
Jon wasn't so sure....
What we had envisioned was some sort of no-holds-barred smorgasbord where you got to try out as many as you like, and then buy the varieties you like. I mean with 500+ varieties, who comes knowing that they want some obscure type that isn't in stores here. But no, they hadn't asked me for some reason, and so what they had was vendors ringing the Dilli haat area selling more varieties of mangoes than you could shake a stick at. Most weren't really interested in letting us taste test, but Jon and I were able to try about 10 types, using the ole "taste taste" ploy.
At first we could discern the finer points: "This mango has a fine fruity finish", "This one tastes like it has some citric acid in it", "This one likely came from a tree". Clearly, we were the fruitiest fruits there. So with the hesitant hawkers watching with bated breath we made our decision: (1) 5 kg box of Deserhi (Rs 200=less than US$ 5), and (1) 5 kg box of some unpronounceable (by me) type. The result=one pregnant woman mortified by two total fruits
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