Travel Diaries: Cutting a Mango

I was thrilled to get to eat some yummy mangos after we got here.  It reminded me that I had wanted to do a post on how to easily cut a mango.  This is how my parents did it for me when I was growing up.

1) Determine the direction of the seed.  A mango seed  is a large, flat oval.  Knowing which way the seed is going is important before cutting and sometimes difficult to determine.  What you may not know is that every mango has a belly button (very technical name, don’t you think?).  It is on the bottom half of the mango.  On the mangos that I’ve had in TX (grown in Mexico, I think) the belly button is really obvious.  On the ones below from the Phillipines (I think), it’s a bit harder to see.

   

Either way, it will look like a little bump or distortion in the smooth skin.  Follow the line from the belly button to the stem of the mango.  This line is follows the edge of the seed.  You will want to cut parallel to this line.

2) Cut both sides of the mango off.

 
3) Cut diagonal lines into the meat of the mango.  If you are gutsy and decide to cup the mango in your hand, then be careful not to cut through the skin and into your palm.

Turn the piece and cut again.  I like to make diamonds rather than squares, but only because I have this thing for argyle.

4) THE funnest (yes, it’s a word) step.  With your thumbs on top and fingers underneath, push up on the skin until the mango cup turns inside out.  The chunks will pop up out of the skin.

5) TWO choices.

You can now cut the chunks off into a bowl OR if you’re gutsy you can hand them to your kids so they can bite them off of the skin possibly squirting juice all over their cubby cheeks, hands and shirts.  Yes, this is what happens in my family.

6) The messiest part.  The seed is always pretty messy,

 

 but you can still get some cubes off of it by making some short cuts and cutting the cubes off.

7) Actually, this is the messiest part (but it’s optional).
There is so much juicy goodness on the seed.  Please don’t toss it just yet.  Cut some more meat off, or better yet, if the kids aren’t watching, lean over the kitchen sink and gnaw all that yumminess off.  You won’t regret it as long as you have some dental floss handy to get the pulp out of your teeth. 

It’s truly a deliciously juicy delight, don’t you think?