With the mango season ending, we decided to send off the king of fruits in style, by consuming it till it consumed us. Baked, blended, curried, fried and tossed like a salad Janaki Viswanathan ate mangoes in as many ways as she could. All week.

Mangoes are gold-skinned and taste of cardamom mixed with almonds, but only Arabs can afford them... according to Behram Contractor (Busybee) in one of his Round and About columns. Agreed. Which was why I stayed off the king of fruits all summer. But last week, there was a sudden urge to sink my teeth into anything, anything yellow, sweet and succulent that answered to the name 'mango'. So, bless the abyss that is my stomach, I did... and lived to tell the tale.

DAY ONE
It's Bengali food for lunch and a double dessert. A nice heavy breakfast (minus mangoes) and I'm off.

Oh! Calcutta
There's no Alphonso here but kacha-pukka aam instead. It's tough understanding the names of the dishesu00e2u0080u00a6 eating is easier. Especially the Aam postar bur. A lightly fried (I say lightly) cutlet made of shredded mango blended with potatoes, mustard and poppy seeds. A little tangy, a little crunchy... bliss.

Next up is a raw banana and potato dumpling dripping with mango gravy, the Kanch kola aam tok. Even better is the flaky crisp luchi which goes brilliantly with Aam duje chingre, prawns in a kacha-pukka aam sauce... salt-sweet-sour all at once. But it's the dessert that steals the show the Noren-gur mango ice cream. The non-preservative non-egg ice cream is made from a date extract topped with crumbling jaggery.
The ice cream is hardly sweet but the toppings and the bed of diced Alphonso more than make up. This is what they call guiltless sweetness.