Weekly Photo Challenge – Inside the Mangosteen

Date: Author: Category: Edibles, Food Glorious Food, Living Abroad, Sri Lanka, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge Tags: , , , , , ,

Just in time for breakfast, I crack open a mangosteen to reveal what’s inside this aubergine-coloured cannonball – the most delectable, delicate  white fruit, tinged in the palest, cherry blossom pink.  And the taste – ambrosia!  A work of art, inside and out.  Come …  enjoy!

Come inside, and see what others have entered for this week’s competition.

90 thoughts on “Weekly Photo Challenge – Inside the Mangosteen”

  2. Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside « Ruth E Hendricks Photography

  4. Thanks for the mention and I am intrigued as to what this tastes like! Never saw one before. The best part about the weekly photo challenge is “meeting” fellow bloggers.

    • They are the most delicious fruit – a bit like a tropical fruit salad, with a hint of lime, but not, at all – their flavour is all their own. Keep an eye out when you’re somewhere that sells tropical fruit and vegetables, you might see one every now and again.

      Yes – it’s a marvellous way to meet new people – the whole rationale for the competitions, I suppose.

      By the way, thanks for the Pingback and nice to meet you too! How on earth do you do that – make the list of other blogs? I never do cause I couldn’t keep the sequence straight, of copying and pasting everyone’s address into my draft.

  5. Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside | Cardboard Me Travels

  6. Do you eat them as is? Or do you put something on it? I’m just comparing to what Mexicans do…they put lime juice, salt and chili powder on everything of this category.

    • Yes. No lime, or salt! This is the sweetest, most luscious of fruits …

      You put your hands around the equator, and squeeze gently till the hard, pulpy skin splits – then you extract the fruit and pop it straight into your mouth and allow the juices ago explode, swallow, then gently suck the remaining flesh, increasing the sucking pressure to remove the flesh from the two pips.

    • Fruit, dear Keira. I think they are the most amazingly beautiful things, and the miracle is that they taste better than they look! Unlike coffee, you know, which has the most amazing aroma, but tastes like … Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it IS an acquired taste!

      These taste a little like a tropical fruit salad, with passionfruit, but no, that’s too simple a comparison …

  8. That’s one tropical fruit that hasn’t come my way. I was thinking about custard apples after your post yesterday, but they pale into insignificance beside your wondrous pictures.

    • Yes, I’m afraid custard apples pale against the flavour – and wonderful, dramatic looks – of the mangosteen. They’re native to the spice islands, so perhaps didn’t make it Africa way.

      Glorious flavour – sweet, fragrant, a tiny hint of sour in the aftertaste, so you’re left wanting more, and when you’ve demolished a bowl full, you’re left with the most delightful, fresh flavour in your mouth!

    • Poor you! Though, there are things you probably take for granted that I sometimes crave. Mostly I’m fine, especially nowadays when we have supermarkets with quite a lot of imported items in them – fairly good olive oil, for instance is plentiful (whereas before we bought it in little bottles, capped = and sized – like nail polish remover!), we even get Vegemite, and a half-decent selection of wines – but cheese, ohhh how I long for decent cheese …

  14. Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge – Inside | Just Snaps

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  16. Now that looks great. It’s new to me, but it’s always fascinating to learn about delicacies from far off lands, when otherwise there is so much homogenisation everywhere. It gives me optimism that there are still mysteries to uncover! I also like the way some of the best tasting things hide themselves beneath stern exteriors.

    • It must not travel well, Rowena, otherwise it would have been homogenised, or hybridised, or whatever and appear on shelves around the world. Or perhaps it’s that it’s tropical growing conditions are fairly limited that has saved it from being tampered with?

      Whichever, I’m always overjoyed when mangosteen season comes around (major season is in June/July, with a shorter, less abundant crop in late November) and I can feast on its delicious fruit for a few glorious weeks.

  19. Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge – Inside 2 | Just Snaps

  20. Wonderful entry! I love the contrast between the hard exterior and the delicate fruit inside. They seem to have flooded the market. But mangoes are my favourite fruit and I am sad that the season is almost over 😦

    • Flooded the market? You mean a bumper crop, this year? Or are they appearing in supermarkets and little shops and stalls where you didn’t used to see them, Madhu?

      I’ve noticed, since the supermarket revolution of the last decade or so, that they’re so much more readily available than the ‘old’ days, when we used to have to take a trip down to Kalutara, or toward Ratnapura (where they are grown) if we were to have a mangosteen feast! Then, later, say ten years ago, the farmers began bringing them into the city, to sell from makeshift barrows in the deep shade of the old trees around the university. Now, the farmers have been moved to a more convenient, but less shady, byway a little further away from the centre of town, and we do see them in the supermarkets – even the podi kade at the end of my lane had some yesterday. How convenient, and great for the farmers, I think.

      So, you’re a mango girl, eh? Which is your favourite? I have to admit the hybridised ‘Bowen’ mango from Queensland is the best commercial mango I’ve ever tasted – but here, there’s a roundish purple-skinned fellow that’s magnificent, or the more elongated, delicate lemony skinned fruit, sweet and refreshing … I’m often disappointed with those dark, large, luscious looking giant fruit – so often a bit of a taste of turpentine, or stringy – ugh! But turpentine doesn’t matter if you use them for achaaru, with chilli and salt … now that’s delicious!

  23. Wow, nature creates some very odd and beautiful things! I love that it’s natural, yet it looks so alien. Thanks for sharing, it’s something I haven’t seen before!

  24. And now i’m craving mangosteen but am sure it’ll be almost impossible to find it here in Paris….sobs…Thanks for sharing the mouth-watering photos 🙂

  28. Mmm, I had a plate of mangosteen just last weekend – you describe it perfectly! There really is a technique to opening them without making a mess. My first one was a bit of a struggle…

  29. This is one of the many treat of blogging. Learning so many new things! If I ever see them in a market around here (and, by God, I should given where I am!), I’ll definitely try one. 🙂

  31. I have no idea where we could find a mangosteen around here… Perhaps the best way might be to do a search on it to see if there are any places that might sell them over the internet. I have never seen or heard of them before… I’m sure once the word gets out they will be a big hit wherever they go if they are half as good as you say…and judging from the rind they look like they might ship well as well.

    • The rind would certainly act as a shock absorber, but this is a fruit that has never been tampered with by man, so it’s shelf life is pretty short after you pick them.

      I once saw them for sale in my local supermarket in Australia and was so excited – until I picked up a fruit, which seemed to have set, like concrete. Once I got it home, it was obvious it had been picked unripe, and it hadn’t ripened, so the texture was firm, rather than jelliied liquid, and the juice was more sour than sweet. But that was a long time ago – growers will probably have become much more sophisticated at exporting their crops these days.

      Please remember to post, or let me know, if you ever find one!

      • That seems to be the problem with a great many fruits and veggies around the world… I’m glad to know that there are places that grow them as a business so you never know. Sometimes, if you find a farm that ships overnight deliverly… like shipping fish, etc. but I guess that might make them extremely expensive… still, if they are as good as you say they are I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising farmer may decide to sell over the internet.

    • I think you need to be in the topics in South or South East Asia – although I have occasionally seen them exported to the West. At least you’ll know what it is, if you ever see one!

    • They have to be grown in the tropics, Ad, and Viv said she’d never seen them in Africa when she lived there. Think you’ll just have to enjoy the idea of them till you come to South or Southeast Asia!

  36. Oh what a beautiful fruit, one of my favourites for sure but I’ve not even seen one in a non-tropical country. Must travel closer to the equator soon 🙂

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  42. not will I have to try one
    I will have to see if I can grow it…
    it looked like clouds to me
    Thanks!
    Take Care….

    )0(
    ladyblue

  43. Tried mangosteen for the first time in Bali recently. Very good, but can’t beat tree ripened mango, IMO. Great shots and clever interpretation of the theme.

    • Ah, you’re a mango-eater, like Madhu, eh? They are are wonderful fruit – sometimes even sublime – but for me, the mangosteen is the greater treat! So delicate, and so fleeting a season.

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