Mango!

Growing up my parents gave my siblings and me dried mango as a snack sometimes after meals. Because they did this on an infrequent basis, it was an exciting and special event, and we looked forward to it. My dad would occasionally cut a real mango at the table, and for some reason I thought it was absolutely amazing. While I didn't like the taste of it as a young child (it was too slippery for me), I grew to love it, and it's now one of my favorite fruits. My love for this fruit was reborn when I went to Ecuador earlier this year. (You might remember a similar post to this on my love for papaya)
Although I will make no attempt to go into detail about all the health benefits of mango, from what I've read I believe that mango is a great source of Vitamin C and antioxidants. To me, mangos are the perfect treat, because they are sweet like candy, but healthy as well! I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by the fruit at first, as it is not easy to prepare like apples, bananas, or oranges. That said, I thought I would share the way that I cut a mango. This is, of course, not the only way to do it, and google is a great source of information if you are curious.

1. Before cutting your mango, make sure that it is ripe. When you push lightly on the skin, it should indent slightly. Yellow and reddish colors are appropriate for a ripe mango.

2. Wash the mango. Many people don't realize that a mango has a large pit in the center of it, and you will need to cut around this. Holding the mango, start cutting off center, and go slowly. When you hit the pit, you won't be able to continue cutting. Move your knife gently around the pit, cutting slowly. If you can see in the picture below, there's an indent on the right side of the piece to the left. This is the pit. 

3. After cutting out the pit, put it to the side. You can chew on it a bit later to remove some of the excess fruit. What remains is 2 pieces of mango (each is one of the mango to the side of the pit that you have removed). Take a knife and slowly peel off the skin. In the picture below, the half to the left is unpeeled, and the piece to the right has been peeled of its skin. 

4. Once the skin is removed, take the half and lay it flat on a cutting board. Cut the mango into bite sized pieces as shown below:

5. Voila! Once you have your mango cut, enjoy (doesn't the mango below look DELICIOUS)!

I eat mango in a lot of forms. Some of my favorite ways include:

• Putting mango in oatmeal (Tropical Oatmeal "Recipe")
• Mango & blueberry salad as an evening snack
• Mango salsa

Here's what I'd like to know:

Have you ever tried a mango? If you have, did you like it? What's your favorite way to eat a mango?