Produce

Mango

Mango belongs to the same botanical family as cashews and pistachios, and people with a tree nut allergy occasionally react to mango skin specifically, less commonly the flesh, due to shared allergenic compounds.

Hundreds of mango varieties exist worldwide, with the Tommy Atkins variety most common in US grocery stores, though it's often considered less flavorful than other varieties like Ataulfo or Kent, which are prized for their sweeter, less fibrous flesh.

Cutting a mango cleanly around its large, flat central pit — rather than trying to peel and slice it like an apple — is the standard technique, since the pit's shape and the fruit's slippery flesh make other approaches considerably messier.

Mango is often called the "king of fruits" across much of South Asia, where it holds deep cultural significance well beyond the produce aisle — it's the national fruit of both India and Pakistan, and India alone grows and consumes a substantial share of the world's mango supply.

People allergic to poison ivy or poison oak sometimes react to mango skin as well, because both plants belong to the same family (Anacardiaceae) and share a related irritant compound, urushiol, concentrated mainly in the mango's skin rather than its flesh — a real reason some people experience contact irritation specifically from handling or biting into the peel.

Hundreds of mango varieties exist worldwide, from India's prized Alphonso, considered by many connoisseurs the finest-flavored variety and largely exported rather than widely available in the US, to Mexico's smaller, notably sweet Ataulfo (or "honey") mango and the large, fibrous Tommy Atkins variety that dominates US commercial mango sales mainly for its shipping durability rather than its flavor.

Mango is a climacteric fruit, meaning it continues to ripen after being picked, which is why commercially grown mangoes are almost always harvested while still firm and green and allowed to finish ripening in transit or at the store, rather than being picked tree-ripe the way a non-climacteric fruit would need to be.

Mango lassi, a blended yogurt and mango drink popular across South Asia, showcases the fruit in a form that leans on both its sweetness and its natural thickness, and it's become one of the more widely recognized South Asian beverages on restaurant menus outside the region.

Amchur, a tangy souring powder made by drying and grinding unripe green mangoes, is a common ingredient in Indian cooking used the way a Western kitchen might reach for lemon juice or vinegar, adding sourness to a dish without the extra liquid citrus juice would bring.

Mango wood, a byproduct of orchards once a tree's fruit production declines with age, is prized in parts of South Asia for furniture, cricket bats, and carved decorative objects, giving a commercially planted mango tree a genuine second economic life once it's no longer a productive fruit-bearer.