Mango Slicer Proves Elusive, But Worth It
We only got into mangos this year. We're not big tropical fruit fans, so when we got one in one of our first SPUD boxes, we pureed it for our daughter. And that was the first time we confronted the nightmare that is dissecting a mango.
We also discovered that, unlike pineapples and coconut, mangos are really tasty.
At first, we assumed our clumsy dissection efforts were a product of our ignorance. Surely someone out there had figured out an easy way to eat a mango? Apparently, however, that was not the case. There were suggestions and guides, and they worked, but nothing saved us from a puddle of mango juice and extra flesh stuck to the pit.
Until we heard of the OXO Mango Splitter. Since we kept buying mangos, we decided it was worth risking $12 on a slicer gizmo. (Yes, it's a unitasker. Hush up, Alton Brown.)
Problem? We couldn't find one. Macy's had several dozen kinds of OXO Good Grips products, but no mango splitter. None at Fred Meyer. None at Target. None at QFC, or in Whole Foods' gadget aisle. Amazon.com had them for sale -- but they were backordered until late July, and it was June at the time. We finall broke down and ordered from another Seattle company, Sur La Table, which had them online but not in their store.
The verdict: mostly worth it. Definitely easier for making purees than carefully slicing around the pit and, in the process, drenching the cutting board. Sometimes the skin doesn't give quite right, but mostly it's slick -- though not everyone's had the same luck.
Regardless, we've added a lot more mango to our diet, even if Little Miss Seattlest prefers hers in chunks rather than purees these days.
