Memories of Manchester - Fruits

I have a love for fruits....I don't think I've ever met a fruit I didn't like!  Of all the fruits that I remember from my days in Manchester the Mango and the Jackfruit remain my favorites. 

Mangoes of all kinds..East Indian, Julie, Bombay, Common, Hairy, Number 11, Stringy, Blackie, Turpentine, Sweetie-come-brush-me, Hayden to name a few!  I looked forward to Saturday mid morning when Mama would come home from the market in Mandeville and would bring bags of common mangoes.  I would wait anxiously with my cousins for our share, then we would find a place to sit and eat them, stripping the skin away with our teeth, juice running down our arms, getting to the sweet flesh.  Why just the other day my brother encouraged me to "find a cheap plane ticket and come man - is mango season!"

Now the Jackfruit is another story altogether...We had a huge tree in the back of the first house at Williamsfield, just behind the outside stone fireplace. That tree grew so tall I don't believe we ever saw the top of it. The fruit it bore would easily weigh upwards of 25 lbs!   After devouring the sweet, pungent contradictory flesh, we would roast the seeds in the hot ashes from the fireplace, because there was always something cooking at Mama's house! 

As I walk through Williamsfield in my mind, I can think of the Ortanique, Navel Orange, Common Orange, Ugly Fruit, Grapefruit, Star-Apple, Tangerine, Ota-heiti Apple, Guavas, Yellow Coat Plums, June Plum, Guineps, Sugar Cane, Coconut, Chocolate, Soursop and Custard Apple trees.  Now there is a story about the Navel Orange tree out by the "Common".....no one could pick a fruit from that tree.  Those oranges were saved for Harvest time at the Church.  That's for another chapter. 

Won't you come back to read some more?