Dry Mango With Chili Powder

I still remember our routine of going shopping on Sunday afternoons. I was probably eight or nine years old and as soon as Sunday would come around I would know that it was our day to go shopping to Liverpool. Liverpool is a big and beautiful department store in Mexico City; the equivalent to a Macy’s or Neiman Marcus here in the USA. I would always go with my mom and my dad, usually around 4:00pm right after church and our Sunday family lunch. Even though this was a Sunday routine, to me it was really exciting as a little girl because I would usually end up convincing my mom or my dad to buy me something that according to me “I really, really needed!”. We would arrive to the mall and it would usually take us about 10 to 15 minutes to find a parking spot. Even though that parking lot was huge it’s always like that when you live on a city along with other 20 million people. The name of the mall was Perisur and it had 3 main department stores; Palacio de Hierro, Liverpool and Sears. Liverpool being my favorite from all three because of it’s huge candy and toys section on the first level. As we would enter the mall the first thing we would do was go right into “Nutrisa” a naturist chain store where they sold all kinds of vitamins, natural products and the most delicious yogurt ice creams. My mom and my dad would always get an ice cream, I even remember the toppings. My mom would get a small ice cream with strawberries and pistachios topping and my dad would get a large one with pineapple and raisings topping. I really liked those ice creams too but I wouldn’t get one because I would always want to save enough room for my dry mangos with chili powder from Liverpool. Those where the highlight of my day! Our next stop after “Nutrisa” was Liverpool. As soon as we would walk in I could feel the warm and sweet smell from the caramelized apples, the unforgettable aroma of chocolate truffles, and of course the delicious smell of dried fruit covered with chili powder. The crystal stands were full of all kinds of candy such as huge round and colorful lollypops, all kinds of gummies from gummy bears to gummy worms covered with sugar, chocolate raisins, jelly beans, nuts covered with caramel etc… The halls were filled with excited kids running around trying to convince their parents to buy them as much candy as they could and parents going crazy running after their kids trying to keep them under control. The scene was pretty colorful and overall cheerful! Being at that place represented no worries, it was pure happiness! I think that my only concern was getting to the dried fruit section and realizing that they had ran out of my favorite fruit. I would walk in holding my parent’s hands and quickly drag them to where the dried fruit crystal containers were. I would let go of their hands and rush to grab two little clear plastic bags, I would then grab a scoop, right away I would open the crystal container and feel the smell of the delicious dry mangoes covered with red chili powder, as soon as I would open the container I could smell the spicy chili mixed with the tangy dried mangoes. By this moment my mouth was already watering and I could hardly wait to start eating them. I would start scooping as many mangoes as I could inside one of little clear candy bag. I had been waiting for this moment most of the day so as you may understand I didn’t care about the long line of annoyed kids standing behind me waiting for me to finish using the scoop for the fruit. After I was done scooping mangoes, I would then start serving some dried apples and peaches covered with chili inside the second candy bag. The apples were for my mom and the peaches for my dad. I didn’t like these as much as the mangoes because the apple slices were too little to enjoy and the peaches were too hard on my teeth. I would get these for them because I knew they liked them but secretly I would also do it so they wouldn’t ask me to share my mangoes with them, I was always taught to share everything but when it came to my spicy mangoes that rule just didn’t apply. Once I was done serving my portions of fruits I would walk to the line at the cash register with my dad, once I was standing in line I would hand the bag with the apples and the peaches to my mom so I could have a free hand to start enjoying my mangoes while we waited in line. I would open my bag and smell the content of the bag, I remember my mom would give me a hard time for doing this as she would said that the chili powder could get inside my nose and I could start sneezing and my eyes would water. At this point I wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening around me, including my mom’s advice. I would pause and grab the first mango slice, my mouth was watering, I would take the first bite and I could hear a soft crunchy sound, by this moment my taste buds were having a major party as I would start savoring the tangy taste of the dried mangoes mixed with the spicy chili powder and a little hint of sour lime. The were so good and so chewy but not as hard to bite as the peaches, the size of each slice was perfect, not too small to enjoy but not big enough for me to eat just one. Just like the first I would eat the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. I would eat as many as the wait at the cash register would allow me. When my dad would turn around and see my fingers and my mouth tinted with red for the chili powder, he would right away realize that I had been eating the mangoes before paying and he would discreetly give me the “you are in trouble look” and take the bag away from me. As soon as we would get to the cash register, he would put the bag on top of the weight machine and with a soft embarrassed smile he would kindly ask the cashier to charge a little extra because his impatient little daughter had already eaten some of the chili powder covered mangoes.