They're BA-ACK!!!

Happy days!  The first of this year's mangosteen crop are hitting the markets.  It's been six months since we last saw any and I've craved them nearly every day!

Mangosteens!

Actually, no. Not quite true. There have been random sightings during this latest off-season. The odd smarty-pants grocer freezes a suppy and releases them in little batches that cost six times as much and only one-in-four isn't rotten, but still everyone buys them.

Why are they so popular?  

Because, dear friends, these are known as the "Queen of Healing Foods" in the Asian Medical Codex. Yup, for thousands of years these ugly and insignificant-looking fruit have been used to cure just about every single ailment known across the Asian subcontinent.

And do they actually heal?  

Well, two years back China - realising it had to give a scientific base to their Traditional Medicine - ran clinical trials on all their "Traditional Healing Foods" and uncovered astonishing facts about the chemical compositions of all of them ... but Mangosteen went off the scale.

I actually sent off breathless letters to everyone after China published each set of results, and if I find any, or if anyone kindly sends any back to me, I'll print them here. There is a lot of interesting stuff in all of them - like, Japan's top healing food, shitaki mushrooms, really does have a wonderful set of healing properties with all sorts of applications. However, I can't recall details beyond that. 

But, in the meantime, until I have those letters again with all the facts-and-figures, I'll just tell you what I can recall easily, and that is that Mangosteen is an anti-viral, anti-biotic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory fruit that has 50 times the pyrenes (if that's the correct name) of the strongest non-toxic dose of the best anti-cancer medicine ... 

... and the pulp, which tastes disgusting beyond measure, has 900 times that dose.  And to take the equivalent dose of pyrenes in the form of a medicine you'd die, but, with mangosteen you just eat it like any other fruit, and have as many as you want, and it goes to work in your body without any toxicity whatsoever.

Now, have I talked you into loving mangosteens as much as we do?  If I have, and you're now off to buy some, here's how you open them:

Here's one unopened

You just stick your thumb into the woody skin. Oh, and if you can't stick your thumb in anywhere, you have a rotten one.

Then you peel away the layers.

And here's what they look like inside. 

And that disgusting-looking pulp is the disgusting-tasting stuff that's so good for you.  

However, Keith has discovered a way of making it into a delicious chocolate-tasting smoothie and he won't tell me how he does it.  I rather suspect he puts a slither of pulp into the blender and then tosses in twenty Mars Bars.

 And this is the part you actually eat. Little segments of deliciousness that are desperately good for you.

Oh, and please note my very dirty hands. You have to wash that red goo off immediately because it sticks to you stronger than any glue. And I should warn you that it's virtually impossible to clean the thumb nail you stuck into it.

Now, until I find one of the much vaunted facts-and-figures letters, that's all on mangosteens for now.