Mangosteen bliss

Have you ever eaten, (or even heard of!) a mangosteen?

No?

Well we had not either until tonight!

One of the pleasures of living in Asia - and the sub tropics - is that we get to eat a whole range of fruits which are uncommon in the UK. Dragon fruit is one of my favourites in terms of looks -- stunning scarlet outside skin contrasted with green leaves cascading off it. The fleshy inside is a brilliant white in colour liberally dalmationed with a pack of small black seeds. Sadly the taste is a let-down --- tastes of nothing but water to my palate. Great to look at mind you.

What else? Fresh green coconuts are fun. Custard apples and fresh lychees of course. I had some obscure fruit in Thailand a few weeks back (can't remember the name) ... looked and tasted fine, but made my tongue go numb. I commented on this to my colleagues -- a general practitioner doctor in the room said he was watching me as I ate as they're known to cause an allergic reaction with anaphylactic shock in the worst cases ("don't eat any more Mark"). One mouthful was enough for me. I've blogged before about the durian. POOOOey.

And mangoes .... so so so so cheap and delicious. We have home made mango smoothies mostly every weekend - demolishing 6 or 7 of the beasts @ a time ... I recall mangoes are something like 80p or £1 each in the UK (I might be exaggerating). In HK they're less than £1 for 8.

Back to the mangosteen. What a weird fruit! Thick red/purple rind ... stains the skin. But the juiciest, sweetest, most delicately fragranced fruit I've ever tasted. Billy could not get enough of them and demanded them for breakfast tomorrow. Lots of references to it being a 'superfruit' ... anti-oxidant etc. Notoriously slow and difficult to grow (takes 7-8 years to come to fruit ... seeds die in < 5 days ...).

You MUST try one if you see them for sale.

M