Naughty Mango

Mango-eating is a bit like masturbation.

Mangoes make me feel naughty (in that sort of blushing, giggling way, especially when I get the mango naked and it's slippery in my hands) every time I eat one, and this morning that is exactly what happened.

The day before yesterday I had passed a fruit stand in the Mission, and had eyed the mango selection: they are segregated. The cheaper mangoes are, truly, on the brink of mango death, and some have passed onto the irredeemable place where many sad fruits goes. The others are more expensive, but they are in various stages of ripening, varying among bitter and hard, tingly and juicy, and nearly too sweet (I prefer the second variety, for the record). I learned the hard way about this apartheid; once I bought a mango from the wrong side of the fruit partition and set upon it only to discover that it tasted like rotten garbage (ew.. that wasn't sexy).

Anyway, I thought about it for a day, and then settled on going back to the stand with the wary intent of feeling up the fruit.

The secret to feeling up fruit varies from individual to individual. The thing about a mango is it has to give into your touch (just a little). It can be green or yellow with red swirly spots. But I've found that the true indicator of readiness is the smell. You've got to rip the brown tip, the bit that had attached the fruit to its vine, away. Then, you have a tiny eye into the nature of the mango; you get a hint of the stringy texture, and if you put your nose to it, you can smell exactly where that mango is in her evolution.

When the time comes, it always feel a little bit like a secret party, and I often choose to eat mango (is eat even the word you could use for what you do with a mouth and a mango?) just before I take a shower. And I often find that it's best to do it with nothing at all on above the waist. There is no civilized way to eat a mango (at least not to eat a mango the way she deserves to be eaten).

sigh