Mangoes continue to surprise and delight me. They are a lot like people. Whenever I think I know something about them, they prove me wrong. Things that grow are complex by nature, and taking a cookie cutter approach to defining them always fails.
As I proceed on my mango-centric food education mission, I have a responsibility to admit when I am wrong and when I too am guilty of being “scripted” along the way.
This is the second season for our Mexican grown Indian Mallika mangoes and The Crespo Organic Kitchen has been buzzing with excitement. It’s so rare for us to have completely fiberless mangoes and these silky creamy delights are proving fun to create recipes with!
I have long had in my head the idea to make mango French toast, using mango puree in the batter but haven’t gotten around to doing it. Years ago I came up with a great recipe for a food magazine using up leftover eggnog and combining it with blackberries. I loved the taste of the fruit in the toast, much better than too much fruit on top of the French toast.
This year when the Mallika’s made their way into the Crespo Organic Kitchen they just felt perfect for this recipe, and they were and are! While it’s true you can make this recipe with any mango, the fiberless ones are way better.
Instead of the usual sugary whipped cream found on fruit French toast, I opted for fresh strawberry butter, which you can make just by smashing strawberries and mixing them with softened butter!
Where exactly is Jorge the Crespo Mango Man these days? We haven’t seen him in a while, which usually means he’s deep in the thickets of his secret projects.
Jorge Crespo is one of the four Crespo siblings, who alongside his mother run the family agricultural business ( El Grupo Crespo) that was established in 1960 in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico by Jorge Longinos Crespo, Jorge’s grandfather and whom he was named after.
Jorge (Crespo) has a deep passion for all things new and different and a totally forward-thinking personality. All the Crespo siblings inherited this from their father, Roberto Crespo Fitch, who built Empaque Don Jorge in 1971 and began the family’s venture into the global world of growing, packing and exporting mangoes, and paving the way for Jorge’s sweet and intoxicating journey into growing the worlds most coveted mango cultivars in Mexico.
El Grupo Crespo’s aim is not simply to increase production and consumption of organic Mexican mangoes but to do so in a way that creates long term viable, profitable and sustainable agricultural models for their surrounding growing communities. This not only means constantly improving but changing as markets do, as economics do and as consumers needs and desires do. Continue Reading…
Thanks to Jorge Crespo and his passion for all things new, including the new growing challenges, as well as his desire to expand the family’s expertise always being forward thinking (Jorge is much like his father Roberto Crespo Fitch), we have several new varietals that are being introduced n the next several seasons
Jorge’s mission aligns with the original mission laid down by his father Roberto, which is not only to simply increase production and consumption of organic Mexican mangoes, but to do so in a manner that creates long term viable, profitable and sustainable agricultural models for the growing communities in Mexico. Roberto, like his children, understood that means advancing, in systems as well as offerings. No one knows just how much things change more than farmers. And the family is always thinking of how to improve and grow as consumers needs and the market and world changes.
For El Grupo Crespo, the mango experts, there is no choice but to always be evolving and growing. New varietals are a part of that evolvement.
Our organic Mallika mangoes is one of the most exciting mangoes to be introduced on the market and its now back for the month of July!
The show must go on. Our annual summer promotion, Crespo Organic Summer Mango Mania #MuchosMangoes starts today despite ultra-chaotic, confused markets particularly on the conventional side, which creates significate pressures on the organic side of things. Despite considerably delays with the Nayarit fruit starting, our show goes on and we expect our peak volumes and the mango mania to coincide with the month of July, kind of as planned.
Crespo Organic Summer Mango Mania #MuchosMangoes is here and the Crespo Organic Kitchen is going to make it extra special this summer.
What is Crespo Summer Mango Mania, you might ask? It’s the collision point between our peak production time in Nayarit & Sinaloa and the height of consumer demand, better known as; SUMMER TIME! For two months, in the heat of the summer, between June and August, while orchards are most copious, Mango Mania frenzy ensues! Crespo Organic Summer Mango Mania desires to Educate, Excite Engage and Entice mango consumers with sweet price points and juicy sales, delicious culinary and educational events and a general spreading of useful, relevant mango education.
We offer a full spectrum of creative and reliable resources and experiences, designed to stimulate, and entice purchases at the store level, as well as educate and arouse consumers digitally and in person. It’s essentially the spreading of #MangoJoy and the building of loyal mango eaters.
All brought to you by the Crespo Organic Kitchen, which is essentially the test kitchen for all things Crespo Organic, managed by me (Nissa) and my company Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center ; a small food education, sales & marketing and media company; specializing in local, organic, fairly traded, sustainable food and agricultural. Ger-Nis supports small global growers and organic brands around the world in with a bevy of services, skills and connections.
The Crespo Organic Kitchen, the culinary education arm of Crespo Organic Mangoes and part of my produce, marketing and education company- Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center was located in the beautiful northern, surf and art village of Bolinas, California for over 6 years. We basically built the Crespo Organic brand from this dreamy place. This summer, even though we are not there anymore, we are still celebrating mangoes & Bolinas BIG TIME. Giving back to the many mango lovers we have discovered there and even some we may have had part of building. The town of Bolinas throws a gigantic weeklong party to celebrate the 4th of July and we thought there was no better time to provide them with and celebrate Crespo Organic Summer Mango Mania!
Between July 1st and July 4th Bolinas- specifically Smiley’s will be dripping in sweet organic mangoes…. we encourage you all to come, join in and ride the wave.
Class Description: Learn to make three mango-centric summer salads that will wow everyone this season and beyond. You’ll get refreshed with our everyday mango education, learning about how the Tommy Atkins varietal’s and its firmer flesh works wonderfully for salads. We will teach several different ways to cut mangoes and prepare three amazing seasonal, inexpensive summer salads that can feed a hungry and even fancy crowd. You’ll walk away better equipped to optimize not just mangoes but vegetables, fruits, vinegars and citrus juices, keeping salads fresh, light and healthy!
Recipes to be Made: Mango Red Cabbage Bean Salad with Spicy Lime Vinaigrette; Thai Noodle Salad with Avocado & Mango; Fresh Mint Mango & Melon “Salad” with Thai Basil Chili-Lime Honey Drizzle
Date: Saturday, June 26th
Time: 4:00 PM CST
Location: VIRTUAL! Zoom
Details:
Participate Via Zoom
Meeting ID: 861 8164 0858
Passcode:
Notes: There is some prep work needed for this class so check out the PRE-CLASS NEEDS Photo on this post for all the details plus the full ingredient list you will need!
Event Description: Tina DeGraff Martinez is a food stylist, recipe developer and culinary producer by trade and a teacher of cooking by heart! Her popular Instagram page (@the_saltGypsy) excels at demonstrating some of the best cooking and food prep tips around, all that are easy to follow and totally relatable. She’s wickedly skilled but excels at teaching professional skills to the general public. We are BIG fans and have been for many, many years! She believes in eating well, but knows that we build better habits one day at a time. We feel super lucky to have her featured during Summer Mango Mania, cooking up our Crespo Organic Kitchen recipes. We are all going to learn a lot from her!
Date(s): Every Friday Night Between June 19th – July 31st
Time: 6:00 PM CST
Location: VIRTUAL! Watch on Instagram Reels!
Details: @CrespoOrganic Instagram
Event Description: Tuesdays are the perfect day to jump on Instagram and watch LIVE!! what’s happening inside the Crespo Organic Kitchen in Blue Eye, Mo. Nissa, who also directs the organic mango program for El Grupo Crespo is a noted culinary expert and founder of Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center. She’s been lending, expanding and sharing her culinary herbal expertise for over 25 years now and has become a leader in mango recipe development. She’s a noted cooking instructor, food writer and recipe developer. In addition to handling all the organic sales for Crespo she (and herb Ger-Nis team) manages all of the marketing content, PR and branding for Crespo Organic and RCF. Almost off of the recipes and photography you see throughout our website, POP materials, social media and blogs is hers. She will be the first to admit she has a great culinary and marketing team- the elves that edit and tweak her creative ideas into perfection.
You will always find her traveling the globe in search of food and cultural knowledge and ideas, while working with small farmers in her produce consultancy business specializing in sustainable, organic, fair trade and local agriculture. She writes about fresh herbs on her blog MyHerbalRoots.com and educates consumers about organic mangoes UnderTheMangoTree.CrespoOrganic.com
Every Tuesday during Summer Mango Mania you will find her live on Crespo’s instagram and sometimes also on her own. She’s fun to watch and her recipes are easily recreated with success.
Date(s): Every Tuesday Between June 19th – July 31st
Time: 7:30 PM PM CST
Location: VIRTUAL! Watch on Instagram!
Details: @CrespoOrganic Instagram or @PicoyPero (Nissa’s Instagram)
Under The Mango Tree is a sweet spot, where I, a long time mango industry crackerjack, share everything I know. A place to find mango centric, agricultural, food and culture knowledge and a few juicy industry secrets and lies.
