A 17th century British pirate and the first written recipe of Atsarang (Burong) Mangga – an unlikely encounter...
"When the mango is young they cut them in two pieces and pickle them with salt and vinegar in which they put some cloves of garlic. This is an excellent sauce and much esteemed; it is called mango-achar. Achar I presume signifies sauce.”
As written by the British-born William Dampier in his book, A New Voyage Round the World, which first appeared in 1697 (Dampier, 1697).
This appears to be more of the recipe of atsarang or burong mangga (pickled mango) when Dampier reached the Philippines from Guam on his 17th century journey around the world. He further noted, “The mangoes here grow on trees as big as apple-trees: those at Fort St. George are not so large. The fruit of these is as big as a small peach but long and smaller towards the top: it is of a yellowish colour when ripe; it is very juicy, and of a pleasant smell and delicate taste.”
The word, achar, is Hindustani (from Persian āchār) and described as pickles, as prepared in the Indian subcontinent (Speake and LaFlaur, 1999); which is most likely the origin of the Tagalog word, "atsara", with exactly the same meaning.
Sources:
Dampier, W. 1697. A New Voyage Round the World. Adam and Charles Black 4, 5 & 6 Soho Square, London, W.1. A Project Gutenberg Australia eBook No.: 0500461h.html.
Speake, J. and LaFlaur, M. 1999. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. Oxford University Press. 496 pp.
