Mangolopolis

Destruction of Psyche Edition

Hope is a dangerous thing. Like Tantalus, we can often find ourselves constantly reaching, reaching, for the fruit that will never materialize. Like Sisyphus, we push the boulder up the hill again and again, in the hopes that this will be the last time. Like Prometheus, it can feel like the world punishes us for trying hard. And like Titus, we can sometimes star in Amazon’s Bosch.

It was hope that drove me to it; hope that kept me trying; hope that keeps me trying. Listen now and listen well, my children, as I unfurl my tale of woe on my biweekly Stack.

It all began with a stray thought: Hey, would be kinda dope to get some Alphonso mangoes. It’s May, right? And George Bush made it legal? So I should be able to find some.

If you’ve never had an Alphonso mango, here’s the best description I could find online:

Many times in my life, I’ve eaten something that is supposedly the prime exemplar of its category—the best banana, the best anchovy, the best burrito—and I’ve found the quality differential to be subtle; I’ve learned accordingly to temper my expectations with these kinds of things. But the one time I was able to eat an Alphonso mango, at the diminutive fruit stand at the luxury London department store Harrod’s, I was blown away. I remember being amazed that fruit that good could actually exist. The flesh was a deep and uniform marigold color, completely devoid of the stringy fibers that sometimes plague supermarket mangoes. The aroma and taste was not qualitatively different from the mangoes I had known, but intensified manifold, as if the souls of ten mangoes had been concentrated in just one fruit. It was the Platonic ideal of a mango, this Alphonso mango.

If I had to describe the Alphonso mango in a word, it would be buttery. There’s a softness, a richness, a give to the texture. There’s no pushback like there is with a normal, yellow mango from Mexico. Your teeth enter and are presented with an unbelievably pleasant richness and density, every millimeter of movement yielding what feels like a litre of juice into your mouth. I recall childhood days where I’d just eat mango slice after slice, putting the whole thing in my mouth with skin on and using my teeth to scrape every atom of flesh off. It yields in a way that feels sensual, flesh coming away from skin with almost no effort. I love the experience of holding the stone in my hands, sucking every last bit of flesh and juice from it. Eating an Alphonso mango makes me feel like a primate. Sucking the mango stone is highly monkeyfied behavior. But that’s what the greatest pleasures in life do to us; they return us to ourselves and the Earth.

So yeah, I wanted some. And I did some research; there’s all kinds of random-ass Whatsapp groups or whatever for ordering them, but it turns out they’re also just selling them right now at Kalustyan’s. So I ordered some with glee, went over there, picked them up, schlepped them to the train, the Q unexpectedly turned into the N at Barclays and I got stuck in Sunset Park for a second, it was raining and I was also carrying three containers of dosa batter. Altogether shitty NYC experience. Normal as fuck though, and always worth it for the payoff of the goods you’re transporting actually being in your home.

The next morning, I woke up eager to break into these bad boys. Cut into one. It looked like this.

Well, actually—it didn’t have any of the good flesh. Just the spongy flesh the whole way through. Weird-ass air pockets. White color. Sour. Didn’t look rotted in the normal way—it wasn’t soft and dark. Just looked deeply, deeply wrong. I felt something inside me break. I started cutting into mango after mango. Three mangoes in, I found a good one, albeit a little bit soft and dark—but that’s fine. Gave me hope for the rest. But alas; the rest were spongy throughout. Not a bite of edible flesh in the whole bunch. I gobbled the good mango up and almost cried at how good it was. Then, I entered a dark hole, and felt very sad for two hours. But then I forgot about it until I was trying to think of ideas to write for this newsletter. It’s getting sent out in 30 minutes. You guys still reading? Pathetic.

I’m glad that people are working on the spongy tissue problem. It seems like the agricultural commission of India cares about it a lot, and Alphonso growers consider it a huge issue. I hope that modern medicine works its miracles on this mango, because I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through the same experience that I did—it was just too mildly inconvenient.

Nabeel’s Footnote

Curious that you didn’t include the price of the box. I sense some sort of embarrassment. Some of us aren’t ashamed of how much we spend on stupid shit. That’s just me though 😂😂