This delightfully fun, interactive feast is served up in a clever format: children are asked to guess which fruit or vegetable is described in each of the catchy four-line poems, then turn the page for the answer, where they’ll find an easy recipe featuring the produce to stimulate their appetites.
“Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.” ~ Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel
Call my name, brand new cookbook! I’ve dallied between your covers and I’m under your spell. You speak my language: Animal Crackers, German Chocolate Cake, Alice B. Toklas Brownies, New York Cheesecake, Lemon Meringue Pie.
Like she says: “everything tastes better with a backstory.”
Think about the hundreds (okay, thousands) of doughnuts you’ve eaten in your lifetime. Who invented the holes? And did you know “the hole is so the calories can fall out”? (I feel so much better now.)
You probably already know that Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie at Massachusetts’ Toll House Inn, even that Nestlé gave her free chocolate for life in exchange for permission to print her recipe on the back of their semi-sweet chocolate bars. But did you know it wasn’t until after the cookie became a national superstar (featured on a Betty Crocker radio show), that Nestlé invented chocolate chips?
I must say you’re even more good looking today than you were last week. How is that even possible?!
I see by the twinkle in your eye that you’re hungry for good words and good food. You’ve definitely come to the right place. Please help yourself to some freshly brewed Kona coffee and homemade mango bread. 🙂
♥ TODAY’S POEM ♥
Actually, I’m on a mango kick this week. I reviewed the breathtakingly beautiful Moon Mangoes the other day, and today I’m sharing Lesléa Newman’s mouthwatering “Mangoes” from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School,compiled by poetry goddesses Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (Pomelo Books, 2013).
Though I’m a tad extremely partial to Week 10 (Food) and Week 11 (More Food) in the anthology, I was thrilled when Lesléa’s poem appeared as a delicious surprise in Week 31 (Different Forms) for Seventh Grade (page 165).
“Mangoes” is a ghazal, an Arabic lyric poem that incorporates the repetition of the same ending word in each couplet. When it comes to mangoes, Lesléa is a poet after my own heart, for her chosen end word is “heaven.” What better way to describe that luscious golden fruit personifying the sun-drenched days of summer?
Peel it back, cutie pies, and let those juices drip down your chin.
“Woman with a Mango” by Paul Gauguin (1892)
MANGOES by Lesléa Newman
I’ve got to know before I go,
do mangoes grow in heaven?
Without that treat that tastes so sweet
don’t want no seat in heaven.
If there ain’t none — at least a ton —
won’t be no fun in heaven.
If they substitute another fruit
I’ll give the boot to heaven.
A mango a day like the good doctor say
and I’ll make my way to heaven.
Will a mango slide through my fingers and glide
down my throat as I float up to heaven?
Now say for real, are there mangoes to steal
and peel on the way up to heaven?
If you say no, Lesléa won’t go —
no mangoes isn’t heaven!
Please leave your links with the fun-loving Mr. Linky below. Don’t forget to include the title of your poem or the book you’re reviewing in parentheses after your name. I will add your links manually to this post throughout the day.
Trust me, you need to make this mango bread sometime soon. It’s super moist, not overly sweet (golden raisins!), and is even better the next day.
The recipe calls for diced mango, but I put mine in the food processor because I like even distribution of fruit in my bread. Since my mangoes were medium ripe, the consistency was sort of like grated carrots. Choice of nuts is up to you — unsalted macadamias are divine and add a nice Hawaiian flavor. 🙂
Mmmm Good Mango Bread (makes one loaf)
2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1-1/2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon 3 eggs 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1-1/2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/2 cup chopped nuts 2 cups diced mango 1/4 cup flaked coconut (optional)
1. Grease a one pound loaf pan or a bundt pan.
2. Sift flour, soda, salt and cinnamon into large mixing bowl. Make a well and add the remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly.
3. Pour into pan and let stand for 20 minutes.
4. Bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour.
(adapted from A TASTE OF ALOHA by the Junior League of Honolulu, 1983)
* * *
P.S. Happy 72nd Birthday to my man Bob Dylan! He’s knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door — probably checking for mangoes.
Have a fabulous holiday weekend, and thanks for poetry-ing with us. Hello, Summer!
When I was little, every so often my father would take us for a drive around the island. This was an all-day affair, where we’d see what we could see and eat what we could eat all over O’ahu.
Mahi Plate Lunch via Go Backpacking
I loved spotting the lunch wagons parked along the Honolulu waterfront, hoping to feast on an onolicious plate lunch with beef stew, teriyaki, or breaded mahimahi. No matter what you ordered, you always got two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. But usually we’d drive right on by because it wasn’t lunch time yet. This only intensified my fascination with lunch wagons: I thought it would be so cool to cook on a little stove in a truck and wait on people through the window on the side. 🙂
I don’t know exactly when people in Hawai’i started calling lunch wagons, “food trucks.” But they’re still a big part of the local scene, enticing the always hungry on side streets and main streets with longstanding island favorites as well as gourmet treats.
In jaunty rhyming verse, Beth Greenway’s Hawai’i’s Food Trucks on the Go!takes kids on a fun and tasty ride around the island from sunrise to sunset.
The trucks all rev their engines up and head out on their way: it’s time to feed the working cars this bright Hawaiian day.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 