Mangoes are in the market big time! Just a friendly seasonal reminder that the summer season is starting and the mangoes are beautiful at the moment…big, juicy, dense and sweet. Not all, of course, but there are really good ones out there at the moment. Mangoes are perhaps my all time favorite fruit, tropical or temperate, and I have written about them before. However, a year cannot go by without some mention of this delicious creation that seems to thrive across the country but does really well in Cebu, Guimaras, etc. They seem to be available all year round these days but the summer months still yield the sweetest fruit. Rather than starting an all out “war†on where the best mangoes are from, suffice it to say I am partial to Cebu mangoes because I happen to have been born there… and in Manila, I buy Guimaras mangoes as I have found them to be accessible, reasonably priced and among the most consistently sweet. In Australia, the mangoes from the Northern territories can also be spectacular.
Part of this post was also to show off the cool Art Deco-ish glass serving bowls that I found when clearing up my mother’s stuff over the past few weeks. Several of the dishes and glass pieces featured in my posts of late are things that I inherited from my parents. 
I particularly like the clean modern lines of this bowl that probably dates back to the 1940’s or earlier. They are perfect for serving fruit salads, small mousses, etc. They are a terrific foil for the intensely yellow mango that was cubed and put in it. However, I actually prefer a slightly chilled mango served the more traditional way, sliced into two halves… And perhaps this is a good place to discuss how one eats their mango…I occasionally like the “caveman slobber all the juices approach of peeling the mango under a mango tree and eating it with my bare hands”…but most eat it with just a teaspoon and their two fingers to hold the fruit…still others, like my wife who has in turn influenced me, like to eat it with a FORK to stabilize the fruit and a spoon to scoop up the fruit!
Growing up, I was a huge fan of salty and sour tastes, consuming world record amounts of hilaw na mangga, sampaloc candy and kiamoy. I ate an incredible amount of really sour green mango with bagoong or rock salt and in my old age I find my tolerance for the sourest of 
the sour has declined… I still like green mango but opt more often for Indian mangoes rather than the unripe carabao mangoes that ripen into incredibly sweet wonders (isn’t it amazing how the sour becomes SO sweet?). Recently, in Batangas, I discovered a bagoong alamang that had a lot of sugar mixed in…it was almost like a “bagoong jam” and it went REALLY nicely with the sour green mangoes! I am curious how all of you enjoy your green mangoes…with rock or fine salt, slightly brined (left in salt for a while) or pickled, with sugar, chilli, bagoong, patis? What’s your mango combination of choice???
51 Responses
If I were to choose one fruit to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Philippine mangoes. Walang katapat, IMHO. I love the supsupans of my childhood best. I remember my mom buying bushels of it then stripping me and my brother naked and sic us on those poor, little mangoes. Ahhh… Mangoes and summer. Wonderful memories. And don’t forget the ones that can be bought outside the school. The hilaw on a stick with the fabulously questionnable bagoong. Sigh. Thanks for taking me down this road, Marketman.
The best way to eat ripe ones is to just peel it like a banana while soaking in the tub and throwing all the peel and the bones into the water. Great for the skin. I do this with oranges too. Nice! For green ones, bagoong of course with lots of fried pork and definitely not the sweet kind.
the tiny but incredible sweet ones, chupaderas as my mom calls them (supsupin), peeled by hand but starting with a quick nip of the teeth on the pointy tip or a small “x” made with a knife, juice running down the chin and elbows, staining shirts but i don’t care…..ahhh, pure pinoy summer bliss! best way to eat them is…seated beside the kaing. many people are turned off by the fibrous nature of this variety but that is part of the experience..i hope researchers don’t think about developing a “smooth” version.
my husband loves to buy me kilos and kilos of these when they’re in season, since he knows i can eat kilos of these in one sitting. he’s ever-willing to stop the car when he sees them being sold on markets and sidewalks during the short chupadera season. i could go on and on about how good the other mango varieties are, but this, hands-down, is my personal favorite. i don’t see them around davao yet, but in a few weeks, i know i’ll be having sugar high summer days from all the mangga…
Rampau, you are so funny! I agree, it should be great for the skin – nice sticky and gooey,hehe! Do you mean seeds instead of bones?I also agree that Cebu has got the most gorgeous
and scrumptious mangoes one has ever tasted and I like how the Vietnamese eat their green mangoes – with fine salt and chillies but, nothing can top it like how Pinoys eat it “with bagoong”.
Hi! You might also want to try our yellow sweet mangoes with red chili paste (korean or thai)… it tastes good and freaking hot!
Yup mangoes is the chosen fruit for hubby and me. We’re purists when it comes to eating mangoes. I just slice off the cheeks, scoop out the flesh with spoons and enjoy all its glorious sweetness and firm flesh.
burong mangga!
green mango shake
I love ripe mangoes with cottage cheese! I have a suki at the Salcedo market — same people who sell the sweetest mangoes *(and suha – challenging to buy a perfectly sweet suha) on a CONSISTENT basis. I bought for 4 consecutive weeks and man, I could just snort a mango faster than you can spell it. It’s the stall beside the one that sells packaged boneless bangus – the one facing Coffee Bean. Ay, grabe. Mabuhay sila. I’m eating the mango I got from them. As sweet and luscious as God intended it to be.
I like my mangoes barely yellow and I eat them with bagoong that’s been sprinkled with rock salt. My mouth waters just typing this. Ooh la la.
On another note — I guess ok na ulit mag-order ng mango torte kay Tony Cuerva in San Lo. It’s my super favorite but I didn’t get lucky last December. The mango balls were sooo sour. I was raving about it and served it in a party. The guests were all squirming and hiding their disappointment because it was sour. Learned a lesson then — for fruit-based desserts that rely on sweetness, best to only get when fruit is in season. Very basic I know but I relied too much on the supplier.
MM, just to make you envious I recently bought a whole box of Northern Territory mangoes (20 all together)from our local market for $10.00 and we had a feast! I scooped out the flesh from the others and freezed it for the coming winter months so I can have mango shakes in the middle of winter.
Oh, I’ll them mangoes any way. Green mango with bagoong, with rock salt or soaked in salt and sugar.
*mouth watering*
MANGO RIDDLE Mabebebesin nga futu Hanging heart
Aggasinnam mu You are looking at it.
(Ibanag)
Filipinos associate mangoes to Maytime (May being the Antipolo pilgrims month.) In May, Manilenos trek the Antipolo hills, pray to Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, dip in the cool waters of Hinulugang Taktak and eat suman with mangoes.
Australian variety mangoes, particularly the R2E2 variety is locally produced and sold (sporadically) by ECJ farms in Tiendesitas. Is this the same Northern Territory mangoes you are referring to? They’re big (almost a kilo each) with a reddish hue. BTW, Dulcelin Gourmet also produces a scrumptious mango torte with a nougatine crust that’s also available in Tiendesitas.
Ripe mangoes – slice the cheeks, eat straight then suck all the flesh off the seed. Juice dripping down the chin is a good sign.
Green mangoes – best with bagoong (shrimp or the fish with a bit of calamansi and sili) and rice (lots of it). Without bagoong, I’ll go with a soy sauce or patis with sili combination. I’m going to have to try the suggestion above re: korean hot sauce.
If it’s really hilaw (yung maputi pa at super nakakapikit ng mata and cheek sucking asim) or even if it’s manibalang – Bagoong rules!
We Filipinos are the luckiest people in the world because God blessed us with the most delicious mangoes in the world. I’ve eaten countless varieties from other countries. Nothing compares. Philippine. Mangoes. The. BEST!
MM, are our Guimaras/Cebu mangoes the same variety as those from Mexico (Manila mangoes)? they say it’s ataulfo but are they the same?
Geez, a LOT of reaction to our favorite fruit! Glad to hear more than a few like to eat them with their hands…that is my preferred manner of consumption… Mangoes with chilli is also served in Indonesia and it is superb…particularly the sour ones with sambal and salt…Gigi, snorting a mango faster than I can spell it is my favorite phrase of the week! Linda, you are lucky to live in Australia, land of the super sized fruits and ranging from tropical to temperate! Rick, I find the Australian grown ones to be incredibly flavorful, haven’t tried the ones grown here but seeds coming from Australia… Bagoong and rock salt the obvious favorite pairing…juls, my sister says the “Manila mangoes” from Mexico are the closest she can get in New York or the U.S., to the mangoes from the Philippines. Funny how Manila clams grown in the U.S. mostly come from the bays off of Vancouver Canada…and if only they saw Manila Bay…would they eat them?
Very, very ripe mangoes (or ones on the verge of being overripe) are wonderful served cold and with a little patis. I have odd tastes and like be salty balanced with sweet. I’m lucky enough to live on a street lined with mango trees…they’re all bearing fruit this year!!!
Well my family are technically from guimaras, so comparing zambales mangoes from ours is… well u get it. Mom used to buys these by the kaing whenever she comes back from guimaras. Another fave is also the supsupan. The there’s the miniature green mangoes that my Mom used to put in bottles adding salt and water pang salad. My fave dipping sauce would be soy sauce, patis and salt. Mixed in a bowl. Regardless if I have indian magoes or kalabaw ones. In school naman you but them on a stick then the vendor would put heaps of bagoong and I’ll add salt on top para mas masarap. Nag lalaway tuloy ako. I live in Australia, and I can not find the right type of mangoes that would take me closer to home. Bowen mangoes are like huge indian magoes. Sweet but not like pinoy mangoes. Haaay…
I remember loving my yellow mangoes with adobo and rice when I was about six or seven…I haven’t tried it in years so I don’t know if I’ll be crazy about now. Now I eat it the traditional way with a spoon, and on occasion if I’m up to it I’ll slice up a cheek in a criss-cross pattern, push it inside out, and hope to God the juices don’t mess my clothes.
Green mangoes I’ve tried with sugar mixed into soy sauce, salt, etc, but to me they are best with loads and loads of bagoong.
My gout-prone hubby (poor one) enjoys it with kikkoman, and I admit it’s quite yummy. It’s much more interesting than plain soy sauce.
MM, oops. For some reason my post came out with the name ‘Anne’ on it :o I just assumed that the name and email on my screen was mine :-p
My parents said when I was a baby, I learned to roll over because I saw my favorite fruit… mango :)
I tried a lot of dipping sauce combinations, I think the weirdest one is patis with sugar, for very sour mangoes.
I was also able to taste mango fermented in beer, brought by one of my friends, I don’t know exactly how she makes it but it was really delicious.
Grew up with Guimaras mangoes. The bomb! Chilled and sliced into two halves, with hardly any of the meat left on the seed is how I love it best. If mangoes are not so sweet and ripe, I scoop all the meat, serve on bowl, and eat with a fork, dipped in soy sauce and rock salt.
Like you, I now prefer indian mangoes now. The green ones are just too much. The best with ginisang ginamos (bagoong from Silay City). Also yummy ensalada style, diced with itlog na maalat, kamatis, onions, and bagoong!!! I also like it with the sweet bagoong and tulapho (crispy deep fried pork bits).
I also love pangi (paho). Marinated in water and rock salt for a few days. Not the buro kind that’s too soft. I prefer it to still be crunchy. Then serve with bagoong. Ah heaven!!!!!!!!!
This post is such a major food trip man!
I’m with you, Marketman! Mangoes are my all-time favorite fruit!
Someone told me that mangoes from India are the absolute best, but I haven’t tried those yet.
Most mangoes sold at supermarkets here in California come from Mexico and Latin America, and they look like giant mutant reddish-yellowish-greenish fruit and taste vaguely like “hinog na indian mango”. Edible, but they still pale in comparison to the big, sweet fruit you can get in the Philippines.
Over the past several years we have started seeing “Manila mangoes” being sold at some stores here. I guess they are the same “strain” as the mangoes in the Philippines, but they are grown in Mexico. Those are pretty good, too, but still not as good as back home.
When I was a kid in Manila my grandpa would buy mangoes in Cebu and Mindanao by the “kaing”, and he would have them shipped to Manila by air. Yum yum yum!
I heard a rumor that the late Pope John Paul II requested priests who went over from Rome to bring home ripe mangoes which he ate at breakfast. Bless his soul, and his impeccable taste!
We used to make “burong mangga” in school for Practical Arts (heehee) in high school. Place sliced green mangoes in a big clean jam jar. (A large mayonnaise jar is okay.) Use one part pale pilsen (SMB) to six or seven parts water. Add 2-4 tablespoons sugar and 1-2 teaspoons fine salt–it depends on your sugar-salt preference. Cover and shake away. Store in the ref. It will foam as it ages, don’t throw it away.
I’ll give you three guesses where the excess beer went in that class. Heehaw.
Yup we are blessed to live in a land with the best mangoes. One New York Times writer even described our mangoes as “life altering!”
Reading about all these mangoes reminds me of a friend’s house in Zamboanga with a couple of mango trees. He harvested a few, they looked like indian mangoes, but instead of the tart crispness we were expecting, they turned out to be bright yellow inside, and had a flavor redolent of coconut. Was really interesting, but didn’t make for a good combination with bagoong and rice.
The Mexican mangoes always seem so stringy in comparison to ours, I love the “fall” colors they sport, that blush of red on the dark green or burnt yellow skin, and they have a soft fragrance. But our mangoes are buttah!
Well,I’d say that West African grafted mangoes can be equalled to our Phil ones. Mali and Burkina Faso can boast of several vatietes of super sweet huge(2-3 kilos) mangoes and have an incredibly thin stone (seed)! I wish I could taste those Phil mangoes again, but my last visit (after 26 years of living in Canada and mostly in posting abroad) in October was too late for the best mangoes. I have to content myself with the lansones and rambutan which I feasted on by the bushels; good bye diet, and hello good food!
I’m just thankful that our villa in Dakar,Senegal has a mango tree now heavy with fruits and a chico tree in the garden. Hallelujah… I’d like to thank my hipag Tess for giving me your website; you’re a mine of gold in my direst need of Phil.contact. MM, you rock!!!
There’s also a mango variety called biuco, small sweet mango with paper-thin seed (bone? whatever). We love cubed green mango with bagoong and tomatoes. Siempre ang green mango shake, sarap talaga.
i totally agree with Enya, nothing compares to Philippine mangoes!!! They rule!
i’m a purist as well when it comes to eating those ripe ones…ambrosia. yum yum yum! :)
mangoes are synonymous to my happy childhood summers, the smell of mango blossoms wafting in the air and you can hardly wait when they ripen, you just have to ‘sungkit’ those little green ones (my brothers would use tirador, lol) and eat them with rock salt. as someone here mentioned, buying them after school, soaked in water with salt and sugar, then served on a stick, still crispy as you make saw-saw on bagoong. Bliss.
and thank you for this topic. i’m an accidental surfer here and i am really enjoying it. Thanks, Market Man!!!
I live in NY, and if ANYONE has any guesses as to where I can find these truly sarap Philippine mangoes, please tell me! Maybe 69th Street in Woodside/Queens? I’ve been reduced to eating the ones from Mexico, and paying 75 cents a piece! What would my poor Apong think?! Please help, lol!
I am a mango snob. Pinoy mangoes are the best!
I agree that nothing can compare to the mangoes of the Philippines! I enjoy eating my hilaw na mangga with bagoong (match made in heaven!). When mangoes are in season here in seattle I go to the local asian market and buy hilaw na mangga, kamatis, cilantro and onions. I chop everyting finely and add good bagoong (from the philippines made by my lola) and use this as a relish with pritong baboy and pritong red snapper! Its the best! I also miss drinking green mango shakes! Does anyone have a recipe for this? I cant find one here in seattle.
Philippine mangoes are the best, hands down! Mango season is upon us, too here in Orange County, CA. Manila mangoes, as they are called here, are available at the local Asian markets.It’s as close as you can get to the “real” mangoes. Also, I just found out that Crate and Barrel carries a brand new gadget – “mango slicer” about $12. It might be worth checking out~! Happy Mango Season : )!
Ripe mango: Slice the cheeks as close to the seed as possible. Hold the cheek in one hand while peeling off the skin with the other hand. Bite into the flesh and let the juice slide down your chin.
Green mango: Best with my lola’s homemade bagoong alamang (she’s from Malabon)with lots of crackling pork and toasted garlic on top.
I live in the Northern Marianas Islands, island of Saipan. The local people, called Chamorros, like to eat their unripe green Chamorro mango, with a salt mix. One of these salt mixes, my fave, is a Korean meat bouillon mixed with Kool-Aid mix (cherry, grape or orange), and crushed hot pepper. Sounds strange or even icky, I know, but it tastes better than it sounds!
A Mango slicer? But all you need are your hands! What will they think of next?!
Cebu mangoes are reputedly the best but I still prefer mangoes from home. The driveway to our farm is lined with about 20 mango trees and they produce the sweetest mangoes, I swear! They don’t look perfect but the flesh is very firm and the flavor concentrated. They’re sweet even before they turn yellow! I don’t like sour green mangoes, however. I have a very low tolerance to sourness, except with sinigang of course.
Forgot to comment about the bowl. Those are stunning colors marketman! The contrast makes the mangoes even more inviting…
Wow! All these comments are making my mouth water. I grew up in Iloilo so i’m used to eating Guimaras mangoes. Leon town in Iloilo can also boast their century old mango trees which comes close to the Guimaras mangoes in sweetness. I love eatng green mangoes in sinamak, soy sauce and bagoong. My mom also make these burong fish liver we call una. These aloy fish we call in Ilonggo I think is a family of tuna. Aren’t they baby tuna? Whatever. hehehe…I don’t know anybody else making this una but the neighbors are always asking my mom to make one. It looks awful but it does taste good with green mangoes.
nothing beats bubot na manggang kalabaw!(the ones that are sobrang hilaw that when you slice them, the seed breaks apart, no strings whatsover)the more bubot, the better.
They are the best with my mom’s bagongg alamang, sweet and slightly spicy with rock salt sprinkled at the top.
yun ang pinaglihian ko when I was pregnant. good thing it was mango season. i was eating it at 1am in the morning at 8am in the ofc. yumyum! *mouth watering excessively*
i forgot to say that we have several kalabaw trees. my mom would cook alamang by the Caterplan-size mayonnaise jars. we would always sungkit the bubot ones and eat them while swimming sa ilog.
YUM. YUM. YUM.
sarap ng site na to.
The Australian variety mangoes are now being sold in ECJ Farms in Tiendesitas for P110 per kilo. I think they call this the R2E2 variety. I’ve tasted these before and still think the local Kalabaw’s better, but it’s worth a try.
Thanks Rick, will keep my eyes out for those Australian ones, though I do like our own varieties… Erleen, sounds like you had big-time mango access as a kid!
Hi Marketman,
I would like to ask where I can buy good mangoes here in Metro Manila, by good, I mean those of the Zambales and Cebu variety. Are there markets here in Metro Manila which sell these mangoes?
I have only known mangoes sold in the local markets near our vicinity (SM North Edsa, Quezon City). I have yet to taste the best mangoes that our country has to offer.
Cyrus,
Several markets claim to be selling cebu and guimaras mangoes, the two places that seem to have really good ones… I get mine at the Saturday market at FTI Taguig which seems to have a lot of them. I suspect some of the same vendors also make their way to the Sunday market at the Lung Center in QC which is closer to you. Farmer’s Market in Cubao should also be a good choice for looking for mangoes…good luck!
Good afternoon, ladies & gents!
I reside here in Cainta, Rizal Philippines. I hope you could help me here. I just wanna know where can I buy big indian mangoes as big as watermelons or melons here in Manila…
Thank you all!
Excellent site! Look at mine!
fruer
https://index.fruer.cn
Thanks!
i eat my ripe mangoes my slicing it in three.. the both faces and the seed.
green mango is good with salt black pepper and shadow beni, its the best.