Chiles and Mangos
March 7, 2021
I have been thinking a lot about these two fruits for a few weeks now. Interactions with them come from a place of endearment. I ponder their roots. My interactions with mangos and chilies come from two angles. A look back will amplify this investigation forward.
The first is achaar. Coming in a variety of flavors and recipes, it consists of pickled fruits and vegetables with oils and spices. A jar of unripe pickled mangoes and chilies have been on my cupboard since I was first introduced to it as a toddler. As an adult, I have a variety of achars now—with garlic achaar leading the charge.
The second would be fresh. Climbing a mango tree during the peak of its ripe season in Honolulu does wonders for the taste of the fruit (although mangos don’t need a lot of help in the flavor category). There is something about picking food with your own two hands and eating it soon after, that is unbeatable. It’s a, “you did that all by yourself…you got a life point” kind of feeling. And, eating a green or red chili pepper on the side my any dish was a regular growing up. Mom, never let us have food without them. She needed the kick…so we needed the kick. Now, I can’t eat anything without them!
Today, the use of these fruits as a motif within my research and practice creates a dialogue. Not only through their temporality and spaciality in my history, but that of their universal interactions. Mangoes and chiles have crept into the spectrum of cultures far beyond my reach and comprehension. But this can be said about any food ingredient. These are simply my interactions with the potent fruits and my tools for creating sneaky segues into conversations beyond familiar fruits. Conversations about the human body, gender, perceptions, and commonalities, histories, and what “home” means.
Incidentally, I did not mean to write about this at all today. Rather my aim was to write about my DNA test results I received a few months ago. That will have to be next week.