Mangosteens

I’ve been meaning to get a photo of this crazy fruit since we first saw it, but here’s one from Tomato Egg Noodles:

Tomato Egg Noodles also has this to say:

The mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) ??? is a small, round purplish fruit native to Malaysia. To eat it, one must remove the thick outer skin to reveal the sweet, white segmented flesh inside. The flavor is a mix of peach, pineapple and raspberry. The texture is very soft and juicy.

I’d like to add that this fruit looks and feels like a painted wooden toy, and the stylized green leaves don’t help it any!

One of the vendors in the now-defunct veggie market saw us looking and offered us one to taste. She broke the skin, by crushing and twisting the mangosteen, and offered us the insides. The fruit inside doesn’t taste like peach, pineapple and raspberry to me… I think it tastes like kiwi, peach, and icing roses on a birthday cake, with extra sugar and a little pina colada. It’s pretty tasty and half the fun is in opening these things.

The other exciting part is that this is the first thing for which I learned the Chinese name but didn’t know the English word.