Monday, January 5, 2009

Elusive Mangosteen


The above photo of "Shady Mangosteen" by Uthala Malar was downloaded from thestar online. It appeared that only the "Queen of fruit" deserved the shading protection of a tiny umbrella!

My friends, do you know how much is the cost of a mangosteen fruit in New York?

In an article written by Patrick Temple-West on March 05, 2008, entitled "Tropical sweetness: harnessing the elusive mangosteen", it was sold for US$ 3.99 each at Kings Supermarkets Inc., New York. For that price, people in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are able to buy a bagful of mangosteen fruit. But before 2007, the USDA banned the import of mangosteen fruit because of risks associated with Asian fruit flies that could infect U.S. citrus crops. Accordingly, the ban was lifted in October 2007 and the first fruits were shipped in April 2008.

Mangosteen is also not cheap in Japan and other places in the world where they can't grow mangosteen trees. Nevertheless, for those people living outside Southeast Asia who have once eaten mangosteen fruit, they know that the "Queen of fruit" has long been prized for its medicinal properties as well as its delicious taste.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi uncle loh,

oh, and you reminded me, i have never had the chance to buy fresh mango steen here, but i check around with friends, and none of the malaysian friends ever able to buy fresh mangosteen in the local market or from the China town...i am not sure whether mangosteen is allowed to be imported because i remember reading somewhere that the fresh fruit is banned.

...and you reminded me... i have not tasted a single mangosteen in a decade now!

the dragon fruit is selling at £1.99 each at the local Tesco...the Longan is selling at £7.50 for a case of 1kg..only available from china town market. Durian, haha, costs a bomb here, about £16-20 each!!!! mango is easily available, but not guava and mangosteen and papaya!

Anonymous said...

Wow, mangosteens and durians are so
expensive overseas.

In Lipis, I get free rambutans, langsats and durians from friends and relatives every year. Local fruits are cheap here. Imported fruits like oranges and apples are more expensive.

Tropical fruits are easily spoiled and therefore cannot be kept long, they are expensive overseas. Only longans, pineapples and rambutans are canned for export. The rest of the tropical fruits are sold fresh and they cannot last long.

With the CNY coming, we should see more mandarin oranges in the market and I think the prices will be higher than before. Prices of all food stuff seem to be going up and up.

When the price of fuel went up, every thing went up. But when the fuel price drops, the price of other necessities don't come down. I thought what goes up must come down but not in this case.