Mangos in Samudra-Pasai by Ma Huan

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Ma Huan on Mangos in Samudra-Pasai

They also have a kind of sour fruit, of which the foreign name is anba;[n119.2] it is like a large xiao pear,[n119.3] [but is] somewhat longer, and has a green skin; the flavour is fragrant and strong; when you want to eat it, you pare off the skin and shave off slices from the outside of the flesh and eat them, [the taste being] sour-sweet and very delicious; [and] the stone is as large as a fowl’s egg. Peaches, plums, and other such fruits are entirely wanting. (See this passage in the context of Ma Huan's travel account)

又有一等酸子，番名掩拔。如大消梨樣，頗長，綠皮，其氣香烈。欲食擊去其皮，挑切外肉而食，酸甜甚美，核如雞彈大。其桃、李等果俱無。

Notes by Mills

119.2 Giles, nos. 48; 8527; from the northern Indian name amba, the mango, Mangifera indica. See Yule and Burnell, under ‘Mango’, p. 553b.

119.3 The common Chinese pear, a variety of Pyrus sinensis (Pelliot, ‘Voyages’, p. 402).

- J. V. G. Mills, Ma Huan, Ying-yai sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores [1433], (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1970), Samudra chapter, pp. 115-121, esp. p. 119.