By the swoonful
The late, great New York Times writer R.W. “Johnny” Apple loved many things, but he was especially enamored of one particular tropical food:
No other fruit, for me, is so thrillingly, intoxicatingly luscious, so evocative of the exotic east, with so precise a balance of acid and sugar, as a ripe mangosteen. I thought so when I first tasted one half a lifetime ago, in Singapore, and I’ve thought so ever since. I’d rather eat one than a hot fudge sundae, which for a big Ohio boy is saying a lot.
I myself was quite big on an Ohio boy at the time this was published, so the comparison has stayed with me ever since.
Unfortunately, fresh mangosteens could not then, and cannot now, be legally imported into the United States. It’s a pest-control issue: according to federal regulators, there’s no way ensure that mangosteens are free from Mediterranean fruit flies. I was left to savor the taste of Apple’s description, if not the fruit itself.
This past week, I noticed something new among the fruits and nuts at my local Trader Joe’s. Could it be? Yes, it was — freeze-dried mangosteen! I almost tore open a bag on the spot. The small, pale pink-white sections are like a more delicate, refined cousin of the pineapple. Even completely dessicated, the mangosteen’s fleshy bulbs are still redolent of something plump, juicy, and vaguely sinful.
So yes, for the all-out real thing, I’d definitely give up a month of sundaes.
