 There have been several verified accounts and novels with references to the mango fruit in Indian Tamil literary works, the most prominent known reference to the mango fruit being to the 5th century saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar, where it is mentioned that she received a mango fruit as a boon from Lord Shiva, due to her devotion when her husband requested it, after providing alms one out of two mangoes given by her husband earlier to an Ascetic, disguised as Lord Shiva.Mango is mentioned by Hendrik van Rheede, the Dutch commander of the Malabar region in his 1678 book, "Hortus Malabaricus", about plants having economic value.When mangoes were first imported to the American colonies in the 17th century, they had to be pickled because of lack of refrigeration.