Resolve: Try New Things Like the Mangosteen

For my first post in 2010, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on a new food adventure. And this is an adventure that I’ve been trying to do since I visited Vietnam nearly three years ago.

One of the most exotic fruits from that part of the world is called the mangosteen. Walking the streets in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, I would see old women balancing baskets filled with these fruits on a bamboo pole. But I never bought one because even in Vietnam these tiny fruits were pretty pricey.

Back in the States, the mangosteen was touted as the new fruit to try. And a couple of years ago, it was approved to be imported into the United States for the first time. Of course, it was still pricey because it was still rare to find.

I think because not too many people have rushed to buy the mangosteen, the price is beginning to inch down a bit. So this past week when I was shopping at Ranch 99, I saw the mangosteen being sold for $5.99 per pound. And their bags had just a handful of mangosteens to keep the price down.

I grabbed the lightest bag with about six mangosteens in it and that still cost me about $7. Still, that’s not too bad of an investment to try a new food experience, especially one that I’ve been waiting to do for a few years.

Now the trick about eating the mangosteen is that it’s one hard nut to crack. What I mean by that is the mangosteen’s shell is as hard as a nut. And to open it, I had to use a serrated knife and slowly saw my way around the fruit.

It took awhile to saw my way deep enough so that I could split the fruit in half and get to the pearly white flesh in the center. The fruit looks a bit like membrane or a brain. It has a soft texture, and is segmented like a tangerine. After carefully removing it from its protective shell, the mangosteen fruit was almost like a lychee but not as sweet. It had almost a banana essence to it, and reminded me a lot of other tropical fruits from Asia.

While the flavor is something unique and different, it’s not something that I would travel far to taste once again. Nor is it something I would spend minutes sawing away at just to get rewarded with a tiny fleshy fruit. If someone cracked it for me and handed it over, I wouldn’t object to eating it. But to do it yourself, you really have to love the fruit. And I can’t say that I love the mangosteen.

What’s worse is that my bag of mangosteens included a few rotten ones. So imagine after minutes of tirelessly sawing at the tough shell, I crack it open to fine a rotten fruit. Talk about a downer.

Despite all the work to taste a mangosteen, I did find it to be a wonderful model like other of my favorite fruits. It was also really interesting that every mangosteen had a natural embossed bottom in the shape of a flower. It was almost like a manufacturer's brand, but this was something that naturally occurred when the mangosteen develops.

So while I didn’t get a whole lot of satisfaction from my bag of mangosteens, I did get some pretty pictures out of it, don’t you think? And at least I’m living up to my New Year’s resolution of discovering new tastes. Now I can scratch the mangosteen off my list.



Food Gallery of other fruits:
Persimmons
Shinko Asian Pears