Taxonomy of mangoes puts taste buds to the test

These days, here in La Gomera in the Canary Islands, we are inundated with mangoes, or maybe ‘overwhelmed’ is a better word.

It is the autumn mango season and our neighbours bring us plastic bags full, golden or reddish green, and so large that a half dozen fill a supermarket plastic bag. The local mangoes are refreshingly juicy and sweet. They are not fibrous and they do not stick in one’s teeth. We could eat mangoes four times a day, but do so twice only.

Sliced, they go extremely well with porridge, moistened with La Irlandesa milk. The La Irlandesa tetra-pack no longer carries a picture of a mawkish Irish cailín with dimpled smile and foxy hair, but the picture of a hard-working, black-and-white friesian cow contentedly grazing a lush green field.