Kadazan-Dusun Pantry Staple · Pickled Wild Mango
Bambangan
Photo: Sweizhong / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Bambangan is huge by mango standards, often weighing close to a kilogram, and its thick, rough brown skin has to be cut away with a knife to reach the bright orange flesh inside.
The flesh and grated seed of the bambangan, a large wild mango native to Borneo, are salted and left to ferment into a pungent, sour-savory condiment. Sabah markets sell it in jars alongside other native pickles, and it's often stirred into hinava for extra tang.
Why it's made this way: Bambangan is native to Borneo and is still gathered mostly from wild or village trees rather than plantations, and pickling its flesh with the grated seed is the Kadazan-Dusun way of keeping a short-season fruit for the rest of the year.
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