The New Complete Book of Food
Buying This Food
Look for: Flattish, oval fruit. The skin should be yellow green or yellow green flecked with
red; the riper the mango, the more yellow and red there will be. A ripe mango will give
slightly when you press it with your finger.
Avoid: Mangoes with gray, pitted, or spotted skin; they may be rotten inside.Storing This Food
Store mangoes at room temperature if they aren’t fully ripe when you buy them; they will
continue to ripen. When the mangoes are soft (ripe), refrigerate them and use them within two
or three days. Once you have sliced a mango, wrap it in plastic and store it in the refrigerator.Preparing This Food
Chill mangoes before you serve them. At room temperature they have a distinctly unpleas-
ant taste and a fragrance some people compare to turpentine. The flavor of the mango
doesn’t develop fully until the fruit is completely ripe. If you cut into a mango and find that
it’s not ripe yet, poach it in sugar syrup. That way it will taste fine.
Eating a mango is an adventure. The long, oval pit clings to the flesh, and to get at the
fruit you have to peel away the skin and then slice off the flesh.What Happens When You Cook This Food
When you poach a mango, its cells absorb water and the fruit softens.How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
* * *Medical Uses and/or Benefits
Antiscorbutics. Foods high in vitamin C cure or prevent the vitamin C deficiency disease
scurvy, characterized by bleeding gums and slow healing of wounds.Adverse Effects Associated with This Food
Contact dermatitis. The skin of the mango contains urushiol, the chemical that may cause
contact dermatitis when you touch poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac.Food/Drug Interactions
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