Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Mangosteen and Groselha

Hi there.  I teach at one of the campuses on "Fruit Day."  Fruit Day is common for preschools here (from what I can tell; it's done at Maple Bear and at Escola da Serra).  Kids bring some kind of fruit from home to their class, and then the teacher talks about the name of the fruit, the color, if anyone has tried it, etcetera.  Then the teacher cuts it up the fruit and serves it to the kids.  It's a great teaching tool, and it helps the kids to try different kinds of fruit (peer pressure works for 4 year olds).  I've decided that this year I'm going to do a better job at looking at the leftovers from fruit day, and trying some of the bounty. 

Today, I tried two first.  The first was Mangosteen:

http://www.onlyfoods.net/mangosteen.html 


















I'd heard about Mangosteen before.  Back when I used to go to the YMCA in Tempe, there was a poster for Mangosteen Juice right in front of the stair master.  So I'd stare at the poster while I was working out (apparently it's super healthy).  The casca (peel) is SUPER yucky.  The ladies who clean the school got a good laugh when I started spitting out the peel.  But the white, inside part is very sweet and a little creamy. 

I also tried groselha:
http://www.ulicafotograficzna.pl/pt/foto/3353/














I found it to be a bit sour, and kind of watery, but I would eat it again.  Any guesses on what we call this fruit in English? 

4 comments:

  1. I think mangosteen is just called mangosteen. My phone's predictive text recognises it as a word so that's probably right. Groselha is red currant or cassis.

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  2. Hi Andrew--yes, it's mangosteen in English, but I couldn't figure out what it is in Portuguese until now: mangostão. And you are right about the other fruit. It's currant--good job :-)

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  3. Ha! I obviously didn't read the question very carefully. :) The thing is, years ago, mangosteen used to be sold as "mangosteen" in Sao Paulo. Maybe that was before the fruit became more popular and the name was adapted to mangostao. Man, that just hurts my ears. It's not a big fruit, it should at least be called mangostinho.

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  4. Mangosteen Fruit is the only powerful natural anti-inflamatory that is completely safe
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    ReplyDelete