• two large green mangoes
• lemon juice or vinegar
• salt to taste
• pepper & cumin (especias) to taste

The preparation is very simple. Peel & slice the mango. Season it and let stand for a few minutes in order to get the marinade working! Enjoy!

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This is one of those finger-licking treats we just can’t get enough of! To many Hondurans, no recipe is complete without the magical touch of our ‘especias‘, which are added to any soup, meat, & vegetable you can prepare, and also curiously used to spice up our fruit…especially our beloved mango. Some would even go so far as to say that if you haven’t had unripened green mangoes, you haven’t lived yet. Salt, pepper, especias, hot sauce, whatever else you can think of are used to season these mangos, and they are definately a thing in all of Central America.

It’s not easy for Honduran brands to make their way out into the world, but we have managed to make a mark in quite a few branches. Mr. Julio Sabillón is one of those successful stories, with his famous especias Don Julio, now one of the most prestigious Honduran brands in the United States, winning a spot on the racks of stores like Walmart. Since 1977, their 34 products (including processed spices, condiments, vegetables, vinegars, tomato products, sauces & salsas) are quite well-known in Honduras; they, along with their sister brand Doña Carmen, are essential to everyone’s kitchen back home!

It’s only obvious that our suitcases carry these products to Honduran homes all over the world. Even though it’s impossible to find our unripened green mangoes, we manage to satiate the cravings with large imported mangoes from other distant tropical worlds…curiously enough, mangoes are native to South Asia, from where the common mango, or Indian mango, has been distributed worldwide to become one of the most widely cultivated fruits in the tropics. Mango is actually the national fruit of India & the national tree of Bangladesh, which only makes clearer why we only get the same variety here in the middle of non-tropical Europe. The most commonly sold in Germany are the Tommy Atkins, Kent, Haden & Kleitt; basically because Germans prefer the red-skinned species.

Although the same species are found in Honduras, we also have our own species called Lancetilla, a unique cross between two others, resulting in a large 2 to 5-pound average fruit. We also have the Pespire mango, locally known as Mechudo, Anis, or Copalillo, depending on the region; this is a smaller creole variety that contributes to the reforestation of dry areas – not to mention, a common favorite, both unripened & ripe! Rest assured, there are actually several hundred cultivars of mangoes worldwide, varying in size, shape, sweetness, skin color, and flesh color; so go out & discover the possibilities!