Peach Mango Pickles

Mildred Fisher of Plainfield, Indiana visited her daughter in New Jersey in the summer of 1966. One day she decided to do some summer canning and she went to a local produce market. She saw a pile of beautiful ripe mangoes. “I’d like a half-dozen mangoes,” she told the clerk.

He looked at her blankly and apologized. “Mangoes are out of season.” Mildred looked down at the ripe mangoes, upset and confused. Before she could open her mouth, her daughter intervened. “She would like six green peppers,” she clarified.

“Peppers are small and skinny, hot and used for seasoning,” Mildred thought as the clerk bagged the large round vegetables.

Mildred’s daughter later informed her that, like the produce man, her husband insisted that manges grow on trees and are fruit.

Mildred wrote in to her favorite columnist, Myrtie Barker to tell her about the New Jersey incident. Next week, other readers of the column, “The Window,” helped break the news to Mildred.

“A green pepper or a sweet pepper is only called a ‘mango’ in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee,” Mrs. Nancy Fork explained. “A true mango is a fruit similar to a melon or avocado.”

Garet Lane of Indianapolis was a little less cheerful. “I am sorry that the Plainfield lady is so positive in her statement about mangos… I have been in 40 of the 50 states and in 39 of them, I have found that the large sweet green peppers are called either ‘sweet peppers’ or ‘bell peppers.’ In the 40th state, Indiana, the sweet peppers are called ‘mangos’ which is wrong botanically.”

Decades earlier, things were more certain. A 1927 recipe column in the Hamilton Ohio Journal News, declared that “the Mango is a vegetable that is very well liked,” and gave several recipes for red and green mangoes. “Cut tops from mangoes and remove the seeds,” instructed a recipe for stuffed mangoes. A 1934 ad in the Muncie Indiana Star Press touted mangoes “green, yellow, and red.”

As mango fruit became increasingly grown and shipped from Florida, the clashes began. In 1961, the Toledo Ohio Blade shared recipes for mango chutney and mango fool, a frozen dessert. The recipes required clarification. Columnist Mary Alice Powell wrote that “referring to green peppers as mangoes is more common among older people than young adults.” Powell observed, “shoppers are learning what a real mango is.”

In a nod to regional tradition, the paper offered ten dollars (the equivalent of just over $100) to the reader who could provide the best explanation for why green peppers were called mangos. Mrs. Clayton Iott took the prize. Her smiling photo appeared alongside a sweet recollection:

“Years ago, when I was a child, my stepmother made what she called Stuffed Mangoes. As a rule they were made with large green peppers, but sometimes green cantaloupes or hollowed out small cabbage heads were used.

They were stuffed with a slaw made of cabbage, green, red and hot peppers, celery, and sometimes corn. After stuffing the cases, the covers were sewed on, and they were placed in large crocks, and sweetened, well spiced vinegar brine was poured over and a plate and stone placed on top to keep the mangoes under the brine.

In a month or so they were ready to be eaten. When serving, one was placed on a pickle dish and sliced. They were called Stuffed Mangoes, so I supposed it to be a kind of pickle, no matter what was used for the shell.”

While I think that Mrs. Iott would have made a fantastic food writer, her explanation falls short of speculating that when real mangoes were first exported to this country, they may have been pickled and stuffed. The pickle became the fruit, the fruit became the pepper, and in the midwest at least, it stayed that way for two more centuries.

Evidence for Iott’s theory can be found in my 19th century cookbooks, which contain recipes for “Cucumber Mangoes,” “Pepper Mangoes,” “Ripe Cantaloupe Mangoes,” “To Pickle or Make Mangoes of Melons,” and, most popularly, “Peach Mangoes.”

I’ve got 80-some recipes for these type of pickles. Though the majority are from the 19th century, they persisted through the 1940s, with some examples printed thereafter as historical novelties.

I scaled down a recipe from the 1910 “Oriole Cook Book” produced by the Maryland Avenue Presbyterian Church, which stood at the southwest corner of Maryland and 25th in Baltimore until the early 1950s. The original recipe called for two and a half gallons of vinegar.

I found a few uses for my pickled peaches – in salad, chopped as a sort of relish, and to top a cooked pork chop. They might also be good on a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. Pickled fruit can be great to have around and I should make more recipes like this.

Of all the mango stand-ins, peaches seem the most logical. Aside from their flesh being a vague approximation, when pitted they leave a space to be stuffed with various aromatics and vegetables.

If the whole mango / bell pepper / melon confusion weren’t enough, a lot of my older recipes have names like “Oil Mangoes” despite not containing any oil. But these recipe names might offer clues into the type of (actual) mango recipes at the root of the mistaken identity. Ancient preservation methods in India involved packing mangoes with spices and salt in mustard oil.

One of the older-known cookbooks of Indian recipes written in English is “The Indian cookery book : a practical handbook to the kitchen in India : adapted to the Three Presidencies; containing original and approved recipes in every department of Indian cookery; recipes for summer beverages and home-made liqueurs; medicinal & other recipes; together with a variety of things worth knowing,” published in 1869. It contains a recipe for “Mangoes Pickled Whole”:

“Peel and divide some large sized mangoes sufficiently to admit of the
stones being easily extracted ; rub them over with salt, and expose them
to the sun for two or three days; then dry them with a napkin, and stuff
each mango with a few cloves of garlic, finely-sliced chilies and ginger,
some cullungee [nigella] seeds, a clove or two, and a stick or two of cinnamon;
tie them securely with strong sewing cotton, and put them into bottles,
with vinegar sufficient to cover them ; cork the bottles well, and expose
them to the sun for fifteen to twenty days. The pickle will be ready for
use in three or four months.

To prevent the pickle spoiling, it is not unusual to pour a tablespoon-
ful or two of mustard oil over it when in the bottle.”

Mango fruit only occasionally appeared in advertised ship cargo in the Annapolis Gazette in the 1700s, but was regularly listed in the South-Carolina Gazette. They came into Charleston, “in potts and bottles.” This was probably the only form of mangoes most Americans would ever taste, if any at all.

And so mangoes became a form of stuffed pickle. And what is easier to stuff than a bell pepper? As to why this particular language quirk held on stronger within a certain region, there’s probably more than one answer as always.

Mrs. Fork, who so politely explained a ‘true mango’ to the “The Window” readers in 1967, appeared in the Indianapolis News a decade later talking about a novel new fruit called Kiwi. “I buy kiwis wherever and whenever I can find them… I made a fresh tropical salad, with avocado, papayas, and sliced kiwis. No dressing, just the fresh fruit!”

I can get behind that kind of enthusiasm, and I think she had the right idea when she compared bell peppers to mangoes in 1967: “Personally, I love them both!”

Recipe:

Ingredients

• 2.5 Gallons vinegar
• 7 pounds brown sugar
• 1 pound white mustard seed
• 2 pounds white pepper
• 2 ounces celery seed
• 2 ounces mace

Pound all before you put them in the vinegar. Select large ripe fruit, fill stone peaches. Lay in strong brine for at least eight hours. Take out, remove stones carefully. Prepare stuffing as follows.

• 2 ounces black mustard seed
• 24 small onions, chopped fine
• 2 ounces celery seed
• 1 Tablespoon horseradish
• large ripe fresh peaches
• salt [for brine]
• turmeric

Stuff peaches and tie together. Prepare spiced vinegar. Put peaches in vinegar until heated through. Take out and fill jars. Pour over them the vinegar and put a small bag of turmeric in the jar before closing.

Oriole Cook Book by Maryland Avenue Presbyterian Church (1910).