Mango Madness

The Northern Territory produces more than half of Australia's mangoes. It's big business. Driving in to Darwin on any of the major routes, mango farms stretch as far as you can see. So it's not surprising that Darwin holds a mango festival — Mango Madness — annually in November in the Waterfront.

The MM festival is preceded by the Darwin Mango Cup, 'the quest for the most delectable mango drink' in Darwin. This year there were 48 entries from 30 venues including bars, restaurants and a chocolate factory. Despite the slightly misleading headline, this chocolate concoction was not the winner.

The five finalists demonstrated their mango craft on festival day. The blue-haired dude was Brazilian; he made a mango caipirinha (surprise!). The second chap I watched was Italian. Sockless ankles, naturalmente. His hometown was Venice, where he told us you can 'drive-a the gondola'. He also told us that he was using Sailor Jerry rum in honour of his watery home and vanilla Galliano because he was Italian.

I didn't taste their cocktails, but I did sample five different types of mangoes in the tasting sheds. I love mangoes and it was really nice to taste the different varieties one after the other. I tend to buy Calypso but I'll now deliberately pick different varieties for different dishes. Mind you, I usually eat them for breakfast so not sure it makes much difference.

Five varieties dominate the market: Calypso, R2E2, Honey Gold, Kensington Pride and Maha Chanok. I've bought the first four in supermarkets but I'm not familiar from Maha Chanok, which has been developed from a Thai variety. It ripens earlier in the season than others and has a tartness to it, which must be ideal for Thai salads and other dishes.

The festival provided some serious information about mango farming, including bottles of fruit flies, but also offered opportunities to paint pictures of mangoes and to eat and drink. There were mango curries, mango burgers, mango salad, mango pickles, mango icecreams and mango pancakes. Oh, and you could buy a Mango Madness fishing shirt. Of course.

The mango cocktail 'beer garden' had the longest queue of all.

I know you're all wondering what won the prize for the best mango drink in the 2021 Darwin Mango Cup. It was the Manglaksa — mango, Darwin Craft Gin infused with laksa leaves, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass, and stirred with a chilli.

This is a good time to mention that Darwin is the laksa capital of Australia. Laksa is HUGE in Darwin. The Laksa Festival is coming up in a fortnight's time, so stand by for that.

https://mangocup.nt.gov.au/