Mangosteens

Purple mangosteen

The purple mangosteen is a fruit from southest Asia.

It's very common to see them in Asian grocery stores. Here are the ups and downs of eating them.

In addition to trying something new — always an up — the one up for me is that when they are fresh, they have an interesting, pleasant flavor. Initially, they're well-balanced sweet and sour, with just a hint of salty. The aftertaste is reminiscent of vanilla.

But the most overwhelming component of the flavor is what I consider to be first of the downs: an unmistakenly strong smell of old, wet sawdust. When these things are fresher than the ones that I've gotten (I've bought two batches that came from different stores and wholesalers, and I noticed that the sawdust smell was stronger in the ones that were obviously less fresh), I'd expect that the sawdust flavor is muted or absent, especially given how people rave over them. But both my batches had that odor, and it put me off.

There are two other downsides. First, mangosteens are expensive in the states. I paid around a dollar something a piece for them.

And second, they're a little hard to open. The shell is about 3/8" thick and made of wet wood (undoubtedly the source of the sawdust flavor), and you must carefully open it with a good sized knife. I put the mangosteen on its side on a dish towel (one you don't like, because the purple stains), place a large knife against the side, pound it in about 1/4" with my hand, then do that around the outside a few times, and pry the thing open. Note the brown stain on the segments in this one that came from the outer shell:

Then just scoop the segments out. You can eat the smaller seeds, but don't try to eat the big one in the middle:

Verdict: Glad I tried it, but I probably won't do it again.