Mangosteen

Mangosteens are considered, in some parts of the world, the 'queen' of fruit. (I tend to make lame jokes about this all the time, like if durian is the king of fruit and mangosteen is the queen of fruit then is jackfruit the jack fo fruit?). Those of you who have not had the pleasure of eating a mangosteen, it is somewhat like eating a creamy lychee (those of you who have not eaten lychees should be taken to South East Asia immediately for tropical fruit tasting).

I had lunch with some friends this afternoon and we were talking about the price of fruit and vegies. I mentioned that a friend once bought a mangosteen (a single mangosteen) for $4. For the equivalent price, given today's exchange rate, you could have probably bought about three kilos in Malaysia - handy considering that the bulk of the weight is its skin.

For the record, I love mangosteens. They could very well be my favourite fruit. So I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the fruit markets (to buy apples and tomatoes) and discovered that several stalls actually stocked mangosteens for $9/kg, which I thought was reasonable considering that they aren't grown here. So I bought half a kilo, which is to say, six mangosteens.

I've eaten one already, and it rated okay on the flavour scale, though it was a bit dry. Now my entire weekend has been planned around the times that I will eat the others. This is what happens in the presence of the queen...