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| Queen Victoria at his Diamond Jubilee, 1897 |
This tropical fruit is also known as the “queen of fruits”, mainly due to an association with the Victoria reduced queen. It was notoriously adventurous in food and thus became in love with the mangosto that it was said that he had promised a knight to anyone who could bring her a new mangosteno. Imagine, a knight for a fruit!
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| Garcinia Mangostana L., dated 1863-1864 from “flowers, fruits and leaflets The I’Lle de Java “by Berthe Hola Van Nooten |
And why should a humble mangosseen be worth? Well, the mangostan grows only in the tropics. Which is very far from England, love? And Mangosteen gets married rather quickly. I don’t think anyone has ever managed to overcome these probability to bring a queen mangosteno.
Today getting a mangostan is much easier, of course, and we are so lucky! When you buy control of the Mangosteen for fruit that is heavy (i.e. juicy). Give the fruit to a delicate narrow. The thick zest should give a little and not be difficult. If the peel is really difficult, then the fruit has already ruined. Once purchased, it quickly eats mangosteno, as it is not well kept.
Ok, you identified the elusive mangosteen and screamed for you a bag of fruity delicacies. Now you are ready to eat one! The only question is: how the hell do you get to the fruit?
It’s not like other fruits. There is no “peel” to detach yourself. The fruit is hard around. How to get to the delicate fruit inside through that thick hard zest? Let’s mean so delicate in this case means very snapble.
So how to do it? Easy Peasy. Take the fruit with one hand and squeeze me until the zest open. Quite beautiful, huh?
Keep keeping the green stem, remove the zest along the crack. Avoid touching white meat.
Keep still holding the green stem Remove the piece of pink pink zest per piece, always avoiding touching the white meat.
Most of the zest is removed with only the stem still attached.
Keep the white meat very gently in one hand. The other hand should hold the stem and rotate slowly. The stem will release.
TA-DA! The white meat and the stem are separated.
The fruit is ready to eat now. The meat as you can see are sectioned as oranges. There are some very soft seeds inside which are edible. You can gently separate the sections before eating or you could simply burst in the mouth. Nom-nom!
Succoso, spicy and sweet with hints of fishing, lithchi and pineapple, Mangosteen Yummileus is really suitable for a queen!
Fruet-Ilele to Hong Kong cuisine:
