In Hawaii we usually have 2 seasons of mango.  One in the summer and one in the winter.  Each has it’s own taste.  Summer season is hot and drier so the mango is sweeter and more flavorful but winter is usually more rainy and less sunshine so the fruit is more tart and watery.

My favorite past time is to go mango hunting during the season.  Mango hunting is looking for the ripened fruit  that has just fallen on the ground.  While driving to and from where  ever you’re going, it’s always good to keep a sharp eye out for those mango trees, especially for the  ones near the roadside.  It’s good to go walking around the neighborhood too,  looking for mangos. But be sure to bring a plastic bag so you can pick up the fruit.  Picking up more than 3 mangos can make the bag awfully heavy if you have a long walk, so I prefer to drive.

The mangos in the stores just don’t have that delicious tree ripened flavor. Also the many different varieties and flavors are the best when doing mango hunting.  Many people like white puree or hayden mangos.  Other types are called,  common,  chinese, cigar, Shibata, chestnut, Makalepa, and etc. Some are smooth meat, some stringy and some are honey tasting in the middle and some taste like apricots. This is what makes mango hunting enjoyable, cause there are so many different flavors.  Sometimes even the same variety will taste different from one person’s yard to another’s.

There are great competitions for mango hunting.  If you’re too late, you might see a person on a bike with a bag full of mangos passing by or a lady already picking up the mangos off the grass at your favorite spot ahead of you.  But your biggest preditor are the birds, ants, and other animals.  The birds will peck holes into the mangos, and just seem to know where the sweetest part is.  This is a sure way to tell if the mangos are  very sweet and delicious.

This morning I spotted 2 mangos lying on the side of the curb.  And a bird was already sizing it up, trying to decide which side of the mango was the sweetest to peck into. I quickly pulled my car onto the grassy sidewalk and ran across the street, right to the mango and quickly picked it up before the bird had a chance to eat it.  He looked at me with his 2 big eyes, as I walked away with his meal. He tilted his head,as if  saying, ” Hey! that’s mine, bring it back!”

Then I continued to the next trees looking for more on the ground but I was just 5 minutes too late for a big fat lady had already gathered up about 8 mangos in her plastic bag and was searching for more in the grass. It’s a common courtesy, to practice first come first serve, so I just passed by without stopping. It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt cause you’ll never know where they might roll to when they fall, under a bush or a car, on the side of a fence or a wall.  Once I found one at a street corner and when I looked around for a tree, it was 2 houses away for it had rolled down the hill.  Sometimes owners will gather up the fallen mangos and just lay it in front of their house for passer-byers to help themselves, rather than just dump them into the trash. Cutting  off the bad side makes the rest of the mango edible. It takes me about an hour to cut up just 10-15 mangos. Now that the Mangos season is in full swing and the fruits are getting real ripe and they seem to be constantly dropping to the ground.  This is when it’s good to freeze the already cut up fruit, cause it’s much too much to eat all by yourself.  When the season is over, boy you can really enjoy the frozen fruit much like a sorbet or frozen drink.  If you don’t mind the work, the rewards are delicious!