• last year
It was a quite a sight to see Elder Aunty's Vilad mango tree was laden with beautiful violet colored Vilad mangoes. Even when Vilad mangoes are raw, still their skin looks pinkish red and gives a picture of a violet themed carnival bulbs lit all over the tree! Decided to pick few raw mangoes and bring them home to keep them to ripe! When washed and kept them in a dark area the mangoes ripes fast! There is a unique beauty in ripe Vilad mangoes and since the skin is a mixture of red and yellow shaded truly gives a picture of burning flames!

Brother went early in the morning to our village bakery uncle's house and bought two loaves of bread for breakfast. Since we were kids the uncle who owns the village bakery was affectionately called as “ bakkare mama”(bakery uncle). People calls his house as the bakery house as well! Since the bread was bought right from the morning batch of bread, they were fresh and hot. To eat with the bread, I made a reduced prawn and raw mango curry. Vilad mango has a subtle tangy sweetness in them even though they are raw that give a fresh, tangy sweet flavor to the prawn curry! To get rid of that sour taste of the raw mangoes, I boiled them in water mixed with salt and garcinia(goraka). Though garcinia and mango have two different sour tastes yet they complimented each other very well. This prawn curry became a hit on the breakfast table because of my quick salad which I made with sliced capsicum and whole cherry tomatoes.

I had about 4 mangoes which was picked ripe at the time of picking them from the tree! I decided to change the sago which I made to drink but instead I thickened the sago and decided to add the mango into it and made a sago dessert for breakfast. Uncle Siriwardena bought fresh prawns from Negombo and brought some imported fruits as well. Though the kiwifruits which uncle had bought along with few apples were not that familiar fruit in Sri Lanka, it is definitely an everyday fruit in most parts of the world! So I added the kiwi fruits cut into cubes to the sago to give a fabulous color to the dessert of white sago pudding with yellow mango cubes and green kiwi fruit cubes. It gave an unforgettable delectable flavor experience to the palette!

That day brother Lahiru was also here to give a helping hand to our brother to clean his turmeric cultivation. Brother Lahiru who is the son of uncle Siriwardena, and my brothers best buddy and they did everything together. Both of them started to grow turmeric on the little island patch in the middle of the field as well as my brother’s home garden. I thought of making some tea for both of them since they were working hard. Yes as always our dear brother wanted something tasty to eat.

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