When is a Bell Pepper a Mango? (minicast)

Welcome to another summer minicast from A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett. We’re still

On summer hiatus, but we’ve prepared a number of special treats just for you podcast listeners

To keep you busy until we pick up with brand new shows in the fall. Earlier this year,

We spent some time talking about regional food words. Not everyone knows what a turkey

Manhattan is, for example, or what cut of meat a pork steak might be.

On that theme, we took a call recently from Annie in Indianapolis.

Her in-laws use a word that means one thing to them and another thing to her.

This is Annie from Indianapolis.

Well, hello, Annie in Indianapolis.

How are you doing, Annie?

I’m good.

How are you guys?

This is so weird.

It’s weird?

Well, it’s just strange because I hear you on the radio and I’m talking.

You know what?

We’re real people.

So what’s on your mind today, Annie?

My father-in-law, I married into an enormous clan of folks originally from Kentucky, actually.

And he calls bell peppers, red, yellow, and green, mango peppers.

But he doesn’t always add the pepper on.

And the first time this ever came up, I was actually, they were kind of doing a backyard barbecue thing,

And he asked if I wanted mango on what he was grilling,

And I thought, well, that would be interesting.

Sure, why not?

And it comes to me, and it’s peppers.

Like bell peppers.

Like bell peppers.

Red or green or yellow bell peppers.

Yeah.

I thought, well, that was strange, you know?

And it was the first time really that I’d spent any time with him,

And I thought, I wonder what that was about.

And I did kind of ask later.

He was like, well, I just always called him that.

First of all, where are you from?

I’m originally from Illinois.

All right, where in Illinois? Southern, northern?

Peoria.

And now these are your in-laws?

These are my in-laws, mm—

And they’re from where?

Their people are all from Kentucky, from the hills.

And it was fascinating to me because we actually went there and visited them,

And that’s pretty consistently what they called peppers.

So this surely can’t be the only place you’ve ever heard this.

Yes, it really is.

Really?

And in speaking with my husband, this is actually something that’s vexed him almost his entire life.

He’s like, why do they call him that?

So he doesn’t know either.

But this is the only place I’ve ever heard that phrase.

Annie, boy, have we got an answer for you.

Fabulous.

First, let me say it’s entirely typical that somebody from Kentucky or Indiana would call green peppers mangoes or red peppers or yellow peppers.

But that particular kind of bell pepper that’s sweet and not hot.

This is widespread.

You’ll find it in Tennessee also, Ohio, parts of Illinois and Missouri.

Annie, over the last several hundred years, many things have been called mangoes,

Many things that we can eat, all right?

When Europeans first encountered mangoes, they encountered the fruit mango,

And that’s probably what you think of ordinarily when you think of mangoes, right?

Right, the super delicious yellow fruit that is divine.

Yes, good description.

I like that description.

So when the Europeans first encountered this type of mango,

They often encountered them, however, as pickled preserves.

They did not encounter them as the whole fruit.

They just didn’t eat them that way.

They didn’t know them any other way but pickled, all right?

Think of Indian chutneys, for example,

That you might have on the side when you go into an Indian restaurant.

Okay, yeah.

So what happened was later anything that was pickled,

Especially if it was a pickled mango, of course,

But also any kind of fruit or vegetable that was stuffed and pickled,

It could be called a mango and was called a mango.

So what happened was the name jumped over from referring to the specific kind of fruit that was often pickled

To referring to the way their fruit was prepared, right?

So anything that was pickled was a mango.

In the United States, what you would find, actually you can find this even today,

Certain types of musk melons, which are small melons, and bell peppers were often used, pickled in the same way.

You’d stuff them, you’d split them open, load them with vegetables and other spices,

And then you would just pickle them silly.

Right.

Well, and they still continue that tradition.

That’s right.

Certainly in my in-law family, there are some pickle crazy folks.

Yeah, yeah.

See, think about it.

Think about this.

When we pickle cucumbers, what do we call them?

Pickles.

We call them pickles.

Yeah, we don’t call them pickled cucumbers.

We call the cucumbers.

Yeah, that’s right.

We call them after the thing that we do to them rather than the fruit that they’re from.

And the same thing kind of here is happening with mangoes in a way.

So basically we’re talking about mango-izing different kinds of vegetables and fruit.

So anyway, so the kind of vegetables that were suitable and fruits that were suitable for pickling were called mango melons or mango peppers.

And over time, those names were shortened to just mango.

So it’s interesting to think that over – for more than 150 years actually, we’ve been calling bell peppers either mangoes or mango peppers.

In certain parts of this country.

It’s not new.

And it’s not really that strange.

It’s just interesting.

The way language changes like that.

Oh, yeah, it’s completely fascinating.

We can witness, we can see how that, the process,

You know, the name kind of just passed back and forth

Between these different kinds of vegetables and fruits.

So, Annie, I guess my question for you is,

What do you call those things now?

I continue to steadfastly call them just bell peppers.

You do?

Do you get into trouble for that?

I do not.

And they’ve adapted to me.

They usually say, do you want mango?

And kind of stop and be like, or bell pepper, you know,

And they’ll kind of hold it up and look at me like,

It’s not the fruit, you know?

Well, Annie, thanks for an interesting question.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

You’re welcome.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

For more information about this use of the word mango,

Visit our website at waywordradio.org.

One link you’ll find there is from an 1897 book called

Relation of Food to Health and Premature Death.

I think that’s a serious stuffy title.

And the book describes the way peppers were used then, though it also says a few things that I just can’t agree with.

For example, it says,

The mango pepper is used as a case for pickled cabbage.

The flavor is much relished by many people, but it is exceedingly tough and indigestible.

It has no value as food whatever, and peppers do not deserve a place in any dietary as food.

Yes, they use the word dietary.

That’s how old-fashioned they are.

Old-fashioned vocabulary and old-fashioned ideas about food.

Now, I could see how you might say that about celery, but not about peppers.

That’s all for this summer minicast.

You can hear past shows for free on our website,

As well as talk with other listeners about our topics.

Go to waywordradio.org.

We also welcome your calls at 1-877-Wayword.

That’s 1-877-929-9673.

And your emails to words@waywordradio.org.

For A Way with Words, I’m Grant Berry.

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