April's CR Diary

Mangoes have lots of vitamin A and a good amount of potassium, vitamin K. They're also very flavorful.
So, your mom either lacks vitamin A potassium/vitamin K or some really flavorful fruit. Or, she is pregnant. In that case, say hello to your baby sibling! (My mom craved pineapple the whole time she was pregnant with me, so I figured).

Oh dear, you've brought up a topic sure to get me babbling nonsense. Sure, I've got an opinion (a right one? no, that's another matter) but you're going to have to hang on tight because I'm afraid I can't manage brevity when manogos are involved.

Last summer I fell into the trap laid by the clever grocery store people, who put on sale my most favorite food ever, even more than pistachios and blueberries and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off: mango. I had not had a mango before then since April 5, 2001, because approximately six out of every ten times I ate mango, I had an allergic reaction to it, and then would not eat it again for a very long time until I thought perhaps I’d grown out of the allergy and gave the odds another try. They were on sale, though, and looked so very delicious, so I bought a mango and split it three ways with my parents, and it was quite good and I enjoyed it very much. And since it turned out not to be one of those lucky four out of ten times, I was soon covered in red bumps and hives and all degrees of a rash, particularly on my face but also elsewhere, including between my toes and on my earlobes.

I will now digress to a subject that seems unrelated but is actually quite relevant, and say that I’m severely allergic to poison ivy. I am one of those people who can have a reaction just by being near the plant, or by sitting on a park bench that someone else sat on after touching the vile stuff, and if, God forbid, I accidentally make actual contact with poison ivy, we’re talking eyes swollen shut completely and wheezing and multiple doctor visits and injections and creams and steroid pills. I am not a huge fan of poison ivy, as you may imagine, but I do like mangos and pistachios with more than the typical fondess.
I mention my rocky relationship with poison ivy in the same breath as my enjoyment of mangos because as I sat there itchy and red and miserable last summer, I did what any self-respecting twenty-something girl today would do: I Googled.

Mangos are tropical and delicious and orange in color, and poison ivy is green and native to the U.S. and probably not delicious, though I would certainly never get near enough to a plant to testify to that. And would you believe, it turns out they are both members of the sumac family and, as I learned from the wonder that is Google, both contain urushiol, the reaction-causing oil that makes me break out in hives just thinking about it.

The upshot is that the urushiol is in the skin of the mango, so I can now eat mango rash-free every time so long as I wear gloves and never touch the darned thing until I’m finished peeling. This explains why I didn't have consistant reactions in the past, though I'd never made the connection between self-peeling and the rash. The downside is that I haven’t always been allergic to poison ivy or mangos -- I've developed the reactions one at a time, and another member of the sumac family is ... pistachios.

My tastebuds are apparently conspiring against me in an undisguised attempt to kill me from anaphylactic shock.

It is my opinion that your mother’s tastebuds are in cahoots with mine, and that's why she's craving mangos.

Is she also a chocoholic? Then I think it's the copper. Both are high in copper. I think cravings are more often for minerals than anything else. Perhaps the B-6?

But, if it's not for the micronutrients, then how about all that nice sugar and, of course, they taste fabulous! I am a big mango fan, myself. I remember from your party that your mom loves fruit. And then there is the jujubes. If she is like me, sugar is wired into her brain and fruit is very attractive. My best way to deal with this is to focus on really nutritious fruits - like berries and - even - mangos. Citrus are good, too.

Just a quick comment to Stirred Apart: you can buy delicious frozen mangoes at many grocery stores, including Trader Joe's, thus avoiding all contact with the skin. Once you get a bag, try April's "Shrimp & Mango 625 Dinner"! JD :-)

Not fond of chocolate. Certainly not pregnant. I hadn't eaten mangoes until about a year ago. Maybe I'm catching up. Thanks for your ideas.