BEHIND THE TIMES

Have you ever heard the expression, " a day late and a dollar short"? Well, I'm a month late and about a dozen marbles short. Today I noticed my kitchen calendar was still on the month of July. I'd been so busy dealing with my mother's health issues and caring for kittens that I hadn't thought to update it. I turned the page to August and found a refreshing sounding recipe called "Edie's Fresh Salsa". I'd been looking for an easy salsa recipe since my sister gave me tomatoes and peppers from her garden last week. I have onions and spices on hand and a friend brought over some field fresh corn from her farm the other night. The cherry tomatoes from my own tiny little growing plot might go into the salsa as well. I'm anxious to try this recipe and I thought you might like to try it too. Before I make it I think I'll head to the Farmer's Market which is set up at the bottom of Stoney Hill each Wednesday during the summer months. I might find a few more things to add to the salsa.

This recipe is from the Susan Winget American Kitchen Calendar by Lang (2009).

EDIE'S FRESH SALSA

2 ripe mangos (green peppers*)
3-4 medium tomatoes
1 medium sweet onion
juice of one lime
fresh cilantro - to taste
fresh garlic - to taste
salt and pepper - to taste
corn and peppers - optional

Finely chop all ingredients and mix together.
Serve with tortilla chips. Wasn't that easy?

*GREEN PEPPERS AND MANGOS

The word ‘mango’ is used in some areas to refer to green peppers or stuffed green peppers. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri are all states that use the word ‘mango’ for green pepper. A partial explanation of how and why the usage of the word spread along the path it did is that usage of 'mango' for green peppers seems to have originated with coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania in the 1870s and spread with the mining industries and with the miners' families as they migrated to new areas and found new jobs.

But why the word 'mango' for green pepper? Many of those coal miners were of Eastern European origin, and it has been suggested that the word may have a Slovak origin. The English dialect of the Appalachian region with its unique pronunciation, grammar, and word usage is due in large part to the immigration of miners, engineers and others from so many countries coming together in one area and being relatively isolated in the small mining towns.