Mangosteen

The mangosteen grows on small evergreen trees in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and southern India. It is a round, purple fruit slightly smaller than a tennis ball. To eat it, you can crush the brittle yet moist rind with your palms to reveal the pure-white delicacy inside. The bitter rind is inedible, and the fruit comes in the form of variously sized wedged segments, the largest of which may hold a solitary seed. The number of segments usually varies from 4 to 8 which is matched by the number of points on the protrusion from the underside of the fruit; therefore, you can discover how many segments you are in for before you open the mangosteen.

The flavor? It's really not like anything else you may have tasted, so do not take comparisons too literally. The mangosteen has flavors that range from strawberry, peach, vanilla ice cream - it is definitely sweet tempered with a very slight sourness. The flavor is divine and wonderfully delicate. You can find canned mangosteen, but the flavor does not even seem to resemble that of the fresh fruit. There is a new electronic pasteurization process that may allow mangosteens to be shipped to the U.S. mainland from Hawaii, but they won't be readily available anytime soon.