The Mango Challenge

Did you know that the first ever mango was grown over 5,000 years ago or that we have 24 mango trees on our campus?  Did you also know that on November 30^th we held the first ever Mango Challenge at the Academy and a third of our student population took part? 

The Mango Challenge, which encouraged students and parents within our school community to use mangoes in sweet or savoury dishes led to a wonderful event that started at 14.00 and enabled people to sample dishes that ranged from delicious mango mousse to scrumptious non-baked mango cheesecake, from tasty mango jam to mouth-watering chocolate chip mango cupcakes and from appetizing halva to delicate ice cream. 

Our four judges, the Head of Academy, Mike Spencer, Jane McCullough from the Academies’ Unit in Paris, KG3 student Kym Nagobo and grade 6 student, Kiko Vilanculos were the judges.  Despite the fact that some of them were later heard to comment that they would not be ordering any dishes containing mangoes for quite some time, they all commented on how delightful the food was and how lovely it was to see parents and students working together to create some incredibly dishes of food. 

Comments from students, parents and teachers included ‘Everything was amazing’, ‘I am so glad we did this challenge, there was so much food’ and ‘I never thought mangoes could be so delicious or used with such variety’. Some of our parents suggested that we should now put together a recipe book, which is a great idea and something that we would love parental help to complete. The winners of the Mango Challenge, 2018 were announced in an assembly on Friday December 7^th. The Savoury category was won by Cassandra Mostert for her delicious array of beautifully presented mango-based dishes that included a delightful mango salad and chicken dish. The four winners of the Sweet category were Hefziba Galimoto for her heavenly mango-flavoured pudim flan, Alina Murani for a delightful murobbo and Rayyan Vadsariya and his mother, Salma Vaadsariya for their sensational chunda or mango and cardamom jam.  We are proud to have been able to host such an event and rewarded all student participants with certificates of achievement.

Save the date for next year’s Mango Challenge, Saturday November 30^th 2019 and look forward to sharing more mango-based recipes and enjoying a tasty community event.