By Emma Murphy, contributing writer
I love poking through Dean & DeLuca’s produce department because I always discover exotic fruits that I’ve never seen or heard of before. Today, I picked up a brownish-purple orb–about the size of a plum–with a hard, thick rind: a mangosteen.
Gerardo, the SoHo produce manager, was quick to educate me about the fruit. He explained that the mangosteen’s hard rind is about ¼ inch thick and inedible. To open the fruit and access its soft, white, edible center, Gerardo used a knife to carefully cut around the fruit’s equator.
The white center has sections like an orange. While the smaller sections are seedless, the larger sections sometimes contain a bitter seed, which is unpalatable unless roasted. The fruit wedges were very slippery between my fingers, so I had to be careful not to drop them. The fruit is so soft and creamy that it seemed to melt in my mouth. The divine flavor is akin to strawberries and cream.
Mangosteens are not widely available within the United States. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they were banned from import until 2007 because it was believed that the fruit might harbor pests, which would endanger US crops. The mangosteens at Dean & DeLuca are harvested in Thailand and irradiated before importation. The next time you’re at Dean & DeLuca, I highly recommend you have a mangosteen… or 2 or 3 or 4. No other fruit for me is so luscious with such a precise balance of acid and sugar. The fruit is silky, juicy, sweet… absolute… paradise.
