This is the time of year I hoard mangos. I usually have what looks like a mango science project on my counter, with what seems like a ridiculous number sitting around, getting wrinkly.
But there’s method to my madness! I love ataulfo, or honey, mangos, and they’re really cheap this time of year, so I buy dozens of them and let them get all sweet and wrinkly and delicious.
And that’s a problem because retailers tend to put everything in the cooler to maintain freshness. Chill damage is sneaky. You can’t tell anything is wrong until you cut a piece of fruit and it looks like this:
Mangos of sadness.
This is no way to increase mango consumption.
Just when I thought I’m good at picking mangos, I binged at a couple of stores and had 32 of them waiting to be cut, blended, and frozen for smoothies. Eight of 32 had some degree of chill damage. I was mad. I was ready to do an expose on who did it, but I mixed up the fruit from two different stores and couldn’t be certain which was the offender.
So, I decided to get semi-scientific about it and bought mangos at every store I could think of in the greater Austin area (minus Fiesta, because the honey mangos on the display that day weren’t the same level of ripeness as everyone else).
I let them get all wrinkly and awesome, and had my son Ike help me cut.
And then, of course, out of the 35 new ones I had, only one had chill damage.
Great news!
Now, what do I do with all of these mangos? I’ll show you.
This is the time of year I hoard mangos. I usually have what looks like a mango science project on my counter, with what seems like a ridiculous number sitting around, getting wrinkly.
But there’s method to my madness! I love ataulfo, or honey, mangos, and they’re really cheap this time of year, so I buy dozens of them and let them get all sweet and wrinkly and delicious.
And that’s a problem because retailers tend to put everything in the cooler to maintain freshness. Chill damage is sneaky. You can’t tell anything is wrong until you cut a piece of fruit and it looks like this:
Mangos of sadness.
This is no way to increase mango consumption.
Just when I thought I’m good at picking mangos, I binged at a couple of stores and had 32 of them waiting to be cut, blended, and frozen for smoothies. Eight of 32 had some degree of chill damage. I was mad. I was ready to do an expose on who did it, but I mixed up the fruit from two different stores and couldn’t be certain which was the offender.
So, I decided to get semi-scientific about it and bought mangos at every store I could think of in the greater Austin area (minus Fiesta, because the honey mangos on the display that day weren’t the same level of ripeness as everyone else).
I let them get all wrinkly and awesome, and had my son Ike help me cut.
And then, of course, out of the 35 new ones I had, only one had chill damage.
Great news!
Now, what do I do with all of these mangos? I’ll show you.
Pamela Riemenschneider is the Retail Editor for Blue Book Services.
