My quest for a mangosteen all started with a couple of pictures from China. One picture was of a small dark purple fruit and the other picture was of the bright white fruit from inside. My daughter, who was on a study abroad trip to China, had sent the pictures of a fruit I was not familiar with: the mysterious mangosteen.
Grown in Southeast Asia (and a limited amount in Puerto Rico), mangosteens are rare in the U.S. I found these at an Asian market and they were a little overripe as compared to the ones my daughter ate during her stay in China.
Mangosteens have a thick purple skin. The greener the stem, the fresher the fruit.
On the bottom of the fruit is a flower-shaped pattern as shown above. This is supposed to indicate the number of fruit sections inside.
The skin on a mangosteen is really a shell and you have to use a knife and cut about 1/4 inch (or around 6 mm) into the shell all the way around the fruit as shown above. Then twist the halves to separate the shell. If the shell doesn’t budge, cut a little deeper into the shell.
Once separated, the fruit appears in sections like an orange. The freshest fruit is opaque white. If translucent, it is getting overripe and old. Mine was a little overripe as the middle was starting to turn translucent as shown above. What does a mangosteen taste like? It was both sweet and a little tart reminding me of a citrus taste like an orange and a little like a peach. But honestly, it has its own unique taste that was really interesting and tasty.
I think mangosteens might make an interesting ice cream or sorbet. Now if only I can find a few more mangosteens!