How did I acquire my fruit obsession? I blame it on the fact that I’m Vietnamese — the same reason why I have an aversion to cold water (defined as anything below 90 degrees 😳). Sometime following my second trip to Vietnam I wondered how many types of fruit I had eaten, so I started a list. While trolling the internet to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, I stumbled across fruits I’d never seen or even heard of before! So I expanded my list into a mini-encyclopedia of fruit that I maintain to this day. That’s why I’m certain that to date, I have tried over 100 fruits, and my very favorite is: Mangosteen. There are hundreds of fruits on my wishlist, so is it possible that some day, some mighty fruit might displace the mangosteen as my favorite fruit? Possible though very unlikely…
What does it taste like?
For those who have never had the pleasure of tasting this magnificent fruit, I have a difficult time describing the flavor because it’s so delicate, effervescent, sweet and tangy. To me, it’s inherently mangosteen and nothing else really comes close to its intoxicating flavor. Efforts to preserve the flavor by canning, drying, freezing, freeze-drying, etc. have all failed. For me, R.W. Apple Jr. said it best in his 2003 article in the New York Times, Forbidden Fruit: Something About A Mangosteen:
“I could tell you that the flavor reminds me of litchis, peaches and clementines, mingled in a single succulent mouthful, but words can no more describe how mangosteens taste than explain why I love my wife and children. Merely typing the name makes my mouth water. Whenever in my travels I spot a mound of those precious orbs in a marketplace, my heart pounds.”
Why is it so hard to find?
At this point you may be wondering, why is this fruit, which is universally acknowledged as delectable, not commonly available in the average American grocery store? Well, that has to do with two main challenges. The first challenge is that they are difficult to grow. The finicky trees require tropical, humid weather and the attrition rate of young trees is high. They may bear fruit in six to nine years, but typically need ten or more to be productive. Mangosteens are also subject to a number of pests and diseases, such as gamboge disorder, where high winds, excessive rain, or careless handling can cause a bitter yellow resin to seep into the flesh, making it inedible. Another common problem is transparent flesh disorder, usually caused by excess water or rainfall before harvest. The second challenge is that they have an extremely short shelf life because they don’t ripen after picking and therefore cannot be picked early. Following removal from the tree, the outer shell of the fruit hardens over time and needs precise temperature and humidity levels in transport to slow this process down. Given that most of the fruit sold in the US comes from Thailand, you can see the inherent difficulties. That’s not to say that there haven’t been valiant efforts to cultivate this fruit for mass consumption.
Mangosteens are the fruit of an evergreen tree endemic to Southeast Asia where it has been cultivated in Borneo, Malaysia, Philippines, Sumatra, and mainland Southeast Asia since ancient times. Colonist to Southeast Asia encountered them there and introduced them to English greenhouses in 1789, but they were not apparently successfully coaxed into fruiting until 1855. In the 1900’s there were efforts to introduce them into the Caribbean and Central America, including Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.
David Karp says in his 2006 New York Times article:
“It first was planted in Puerto Rico in 1903, and a 1925 article in The New York Times trumpeted that this “wondrous fruit of the East” would soon be available on the mainland from tropical America. But in 1963 another article lamented that “it remains as scarce as ever.” In 1970 Lincoln A. Martin, a mangosteen aficionado, imported considerable quantities from the United Fruit planting in Lancetilla, Honduras, then the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The fruit “made quite a splash,” recalled Frieda Caplan, the distributor; but it required fumigation, which made it susceptible to rapid spoilage, curtailing the experiment, Mr. Martin said.”
Prior to 2007, it was illegal to import mangosteens into the US because of the tropical pests that the fruit might harbor. Irradiated fruit was permitted to be imported in 2007, when they were sold for up to $60 per pound in specialty produce stores in New York City. Since those early days, the price has come down significantly, and I’m typically buying them in NYC’s Chinatown for $8-$9 per pound, which is by no means inexpensive considering they are a heavy fruit. Currently, Thailand is the largest commercial producer, with Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam being the other major Asian exporters.
Now, if you are in the enviable position of being able to get your hands on some, how do you choose good ones? The outer shell of good mangosteens should yield to slight pressure, avoid any with hard spots since this indicates they are past their prime. Additionally, fresh ones will have healthy green caps and a slight sheen to the skin. You’ll want to avoid any that have some yellow sap on the skin or stem as that may be a sign of gamboge. Fun fact: if you look at the bottom of a mangosteen you will see a slightly raised flower pattern — the number of “petals” corresponds to the number of fruit segments inside — usually 4 to 8. This doesn’t affect the quality of the fruit, it just gives you an idea of how many seeds will need to be spit out, as generally speaking, fewer segments means more and/or larger seeds.
How to eat one
To eat a mangosteen, use a paring knife to cut approximately ¼ inch into the outer shell all the way around its mid-section and twist off one side. If you don’t have a knife handy or are lazy like me, simply press one between your palms until a crack appears and then you can peel off the outer shell along the crack. With either method, be very careful not to get the coloring from the shell onto your clothes or it will be a permanent stain.
I recommend eating them fresh and, ideally, as soon as possible after purchasing 😄. I’ve seen people recommending adding them to salads or smoothies which seems like a great injustice and gigantic waste because the flavor is too delicate and will be lost with other flavors on top, and it’s too rare and expensive to be used like a common fruit!
Finally, as I was doing research for this post, I came across Ian Crown, owner of Panorama Fruit in western Puerto Rico. He started an exotic fruit farm in 1994 and in 2006 was America’s only commercial mangosteen grower. Growing tropical fruit can be a fickle process and is increasingly so with extreme fluctuations in weather patterns. Looking up his company for current status has sadly revealed that his farm was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and is struggling to survive — so much so that he’s had to put his pride aside to ask for help. If anyone reading this loves fruit as much as I do and can help, please consider doing so.
His website available here:
http://www.panoramicfruit.com/
His GoFundMe page here:
https://www.gofundme.com/saving-puerto-rico-agriculture
Hopefully, you found this post fun and useful!
Fruitfully yours,
Yen
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