TODAY

There is a Myanmar saying in a rhymed triplet:

အသီးမွာသရက္၊  Mangoes are the fruits so sweet,
အ႐ြက္မွာ လဖက္ Tea is the best Leaf to eat,
အသားမွာဝက္  Pork is the excellent meat.

Myanmar people not only believe this saying but also practically experience it.

Right now, June to September is the Mangoe season in Myanmar. Mangoe is a tropical evergreen tree, native to Asia. It is cultivated for its edible fruit. The ovoid fruit of this tree has a smooth rind and sweet juicy yellow orange flesh with attractive flavour.

Depending upon the monsoon, Mangoe season begins either early or late June. When mangoe trees burst into budding and flowering, the environment is changed with green refreshing fragrance. All insects and birds even squirrels could not resist the temptation to eat them. Men are no exception, for they pluck them for preparing delicious salad with shrimp paste for their side dish. When mangoe flowers turn to likable green fruit which Myanmar people called ”Thayet-Kin”. They are also favourite in making different types of appetisers.

Matured man -goes fruits quickly find their way to markets and bazaar before they are ripen. By any means of transport, human, bicycle, bull-ock cart, boat, car, truck or train and even plane, they are rushed to early morning bazaars or centres of whole sale dealers in towns to get good price from their customers.

Myanmar mangoes are as many in kinds as they are in taste. Also they are given metaphoric, poetic or fancy names. Shwe Phala is for yellow gold coloured mangoe, Daungmee is for the mangoe shaped like a peacock, Ma Chit Su is the name of the woman who probably must have cultivated it. Ma Chit Su mangoe is more delicious if eaten green. Aung Tin is regarded the king of all mangoes as its flesh is smooth, the fragrance is excellent and the taste is like ”ambrosia”. It was a royal mangoe in the days of Myanmar kings. You can never finish inven-tory of Myanmar mangoes.

Myanmar mangoes have a big role in Myan-mar history and culture. Stone inscriptions to religion monuments, pagoda and monasteries, or bartered in trade transaction with farm workers, cattle, jewelry or given as gift or inheritance.

Mangoe leaves, fruits and flowers are favourite motifs in the designs of architecture and decorative arts. Big five storey teak monasteries have two six brick staircases with mangoe fruit designs. They are called သရက္ကင္း အုတ္ေလွခါး Clothing with colourful floral designs are called သရက္ထည္ “calico”.

There are places and monasteries with the name mangoe attached. Such as သရက္ပင္႐ြာ illage with a mangoe Tree သရက္ၿမိဳ႕ Mangoe Town, သရက္ပင္ဆိပ္ Mangoe Jetty, သရက္ေမွာ္ေကြ႕  Mangoe Forest bay သရက္ပင္ေက်ာင္းတိုက္ Mangoe Forest Monastery.

In Myanmar culinary art, mangoe plays many roles. Green mango pickled in salt water, cut into different shapes is called သရက္ခ်ဥ္ Which is a delicious appetiser with shrimp paste. If pickled in spicy oil it is သရက္သီးဆီစိမ္ which is served with rich ”bibriuni” or danpauk rice or butter rice. Dried mangoe is used in preparing Myanmar traditional dish ”Hyin Lay curry” ­_Pork, beef, mutton, or even fish cooked in earthen pot. Ripe mangoes are pressed and dried in the sun, packed properly with leaves to carry with you on a long journey for your refreshment.

Because of its luxative property, Myanmar herbalists make dozens of traditional medicine with mangoe for curing constipation,
Myanmar poets and writers appreciate mangoe in their literary outputs. One of Myan-mar King’s eight thrones ”Padumasana” ( Lotus throne) was made of mangoe wood.

Buddha’s jataka stories often mention mangoe fruit, mangoe forests etc with sacred-ness and sublime meanings and implications.
23rd Buddha “Sikhi” in the list of 28 Buddhas ႏွစ္က်ိပ္ရွစ္ဆူ was enlightened under the shade of the Bodhi tree ”white Mangoe” (Curcuna amada).

Maha Suddhamma Jotika dhaja
Sithu, Dr.Khin Maung Nyunt