If you’ve been following me for a while, you might call foul on this post. See, for Try a New Food Tuesday, we’re supposed to try a new whole food. And if you know me, then you know I eat Mango every single day. My favorite breakfast is half a chopped mango, blueberries or blackberries, no salt added cottage cheese, cinnamon, and walnuts. It tastes amazing and is a very filling way to start the day. I love it!
And even though everyone else in the house sees me eating mango all of the time, I can never get them to try it! So I decided that this week, I’d get everyone to try some mango.
For those of you who haven’t had mango before, it’s important to eat it when it’s ripe. And, you cannot judge a mango’s ripeness by color. Instead, you’re looking for a mango without any black spots, and whose flesh gives a little when you apply pressure. If the mango is firm and hard, you can still buy it, but put it in your fruit bowl for a week to let it ripen before cutting into it. (At my local grocery store, the mangoes are NEVER ripe. I always have to buy ahead.)
Now that you have a ripe mango, it’s time to get the yummy flesh out so that you can eat it!
There’s a large flat seed in the center of every mango. While you can buy a special tool to make cutting your mango easy, I find it just as easy to cut through the mango just off the mid-line, and then repeat on the other side. This gives you two seedless halves, and leaves the large seed in the middle section. There will still be some flesh around the seed that you can eat. If you love mango as much as I do, you won’t let this part go to waste!
While mango peel is technically edible, you’ll want to separate the flesh from the peel. Unless the mango is very ripe, the peel will be bitter and not very tasty. Also, the peel contains a toxin similar to that in poison ivy and poison oak. While most people don’t react to it, if you are someone who has a strong allergy to these plants, I’d recommend avoiding mango peel.
So then, how do you separate the flesh from the peel? I prefer the “hedgehog” method, as shown in my picture, at left. I score the flesh lengthwise and crosswise, and then turn the peel inside out. It’s then easy to cut the mango from the peel.
So now here’s my family’s review of mango:
Me: This one was still a little unripe, so it wasn’t as sweet as I like. Still, I absolutely love mango. It’s my favorite fruit. So I still give this one high marks.
7 year-old: It’s okay. Rate it 3 out of 5. (This means she’d eat it if it were on her plate, but wouldn’t ask for it.)
4 year-old (smelled it only): Ewww!
Daddy: It’s not my thing.
I’m sensing a trend with the 4-year old. Are you? At least he’s interested enough in what we’re doing to smell the food and give an opinion! Later in the week, I had a mango that was a little more ripe. I gave the 7 year-old a piece to see if she liked it better. Her review? Much to my surprise, she said it was too sweet, and she preferred the less-ripe piece she’d had on Tuesday. Go figure!
So how will you know if you’ll like mango? Well, the only sure way is to try it. But the flavor is similar to peach with a mild tropical flavor like pineapple. If the flesh is very firm, it will be less sweet, and it will sweeten as it ripens. What did you try this week?
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Ok, this is a little crazy! I just bought a mango on Saturday to have my 3 year old try it. He loves almost all fruit. I’ve never bought one before, so I kind of winged it on the ripeness. I think I let it ripen too much because it had a brown spot this morning. I tried to cut it, but had no idea what I was doing and mangled the whole thing. You are going to absolutely cringe at this, but I threw it away. Thanks for your advice on how to cut it and how to find a ripe one. I may go back to the store this week and get another.