Mangosteen

Every time I go to a new country, without fail, someone will warn me about the dangers of drinking the water or eating the food. I'm usually pretty careful about the water, but it's sometimes difficult to avoid the food. Turns out I kinda like food, even the odd stuff. of course there is the occasional item that I would rather not have again, such as whole bably octopus, or (who could forget) the sea cucumber. But by and large, I like trying new things and have grown quite accustomed to the Asian food. There are times in the States when I actually get a craving for some fried noodles at breakfast. I just can't turn down food. I suppose I’ve been lucky to this point. The biggest health risk I’ve faced so far is getting fat on all the great stuff that each country has to offer. One option to combat the fat risk, while still satisfying my urge to explore, is to look for the local fruits that cannot be bought easily in the US. I found one tonight. It’s called the Mangosteen. It's not at all related to the Mango, nor does it look like one in any way. After spotting a stack of them I asked the girl behind the table what is was and how to eat it. She just dug into the leathery outer shell with her fingernails and pulled the thing in half, revealing small pearl colored seed pods that are the edible part of the fruit. The whole thing is a little larger than a golf ball and feels almost as hard, but inside are these little fleshy seeds that have a citrus type flavor to them. Not bad at all. I took one back to the room to get a couple photos of what it looks like, but I think I’ll just eat it and grab some pics off the web. So far, both that I've eaten have had one pod that is significantly larger than the others and it contains something solid that i did not try to eat. I'm assuming it was the actual seed.

Ok, funny story. Not in a funny "ha-ha" type of way. More of a funny, "get this thing off of me!" type of way. I grabbed my web picture that you see above, then picked up my last mangosteen and dug in. as soon as my fingernails broke the outer skin, a little black ant shot out, ran up my hand and bit me. You gotta be kidding! I'll tell ya right now, that is one smashed ant. Of course, once the death and mayhem was over I got back to the work of opening the fruit. Tasty.