Amb! My favorite of favorites, will hit U.S. stores in a month or so. Actually, Amb is Hindi for mango and Indian mangoes are the juiciest, sweetest, and most succulent things you will ever come across.

I used to buy the all the time in Norway. In the U.S. there are some mangoes called Champagne mangoes, which are similar in taste, but they are not as good as the real deal. Those green/red Brazilian mangoes that are as hard a potato, and as tart as lemons can’t hold a candle to the delicious Indian version.

I went to this three-day seminar several years ago, and by the end of a very tedious session, I had written an erotic short story featuring mangoes and the handsome maitre d’ at the hotel restaurant. Lucky for the rest of the world, this particular piece of fiction was lost in the great hard drive crash of spring of 2003.

Listening to this piece on NPR not only taught me about Tony Snow’s Goyal-foil, where he changes the subject by asking for questions from reporters that he KNOW will change the subject. It also taught me about a trade barrier known as the fruit fly, and it took me back to sunny days in the parks of Oslo, where we would have mango lassi. Mango lassi is a wonderful drink made of mango pulp and cultured buttermilk. Plain lassi with limejuice and green cardamoms are very tasty and refreshing too.

By the way, the fright of foreign fruit flies must be the most stupid excuse for why we should not import mangoes from India. This doesn’t seem to be a problem with produce from other countries, and I am sure that we could have treated Indian mangoes with the same insect-killing chemicals as we do any other produce over the last 18 years. No one can tell me this was a legitimate excuse for blocking produce from India, this has to be a trade barrier. Now its gone, so we can celebrate great mangoes and a freer world!

Yeah!

NPR:U.S. Braces for (Indian) Mango Madness