MANGOSTEEN
Mangosteen is a different kind of fruit, since you have to cut it open to reveal the inner white flesh bites, sort of like you do with a grape fruit, but the rind is tougher. Mangosteen tastes lovely, is very refreshing, and has a light flavor. It has been called the queen of fruits, and while this is certainly debatable, the fact remains that mangosteen is indeed a nice fruit to indulge in.
Mangosteen has nothing to do with mango, biotanically speaking, since there is no relationship between them more than within the semantics. Interestingly, even though the mangosteen trees can be both male and female, the male trees are extremely rare. For this reason, no pollen exists even though the female trees still carry the anthers that should be able to capture pollen. But, since mangosteen pollen is not available, the females have to make fruits on their own and so they do. Even though it works, the fact that mangosteen pollen rarely exists makes the breeding of mangosteen variations impossible. On the other hand, you know what you get when you buy mangosteen fruit.
How do you eat mangosteen if you never had it before? Make a shallow cut in a circle, around the equatorial axis of the fruit and twist the two halves slightly, then lift one of the halves. Now you should have exposed the big white segments inside the fruit. This is what is edible, the rest of the fruit is thrown away. So, pick out the white segments and eat them. Depending on how old the fruit is, the skin will get tougher and tougher, so a really tough skin can mean that the fruit is already spoiled and the white segments inside are molded. Try to find mangosteen that are not too hard on the skin, and consume them as soon as possible. A sign of how old the fruit is since it was pluck from the tree is the color of the seeds inside it - the more brown they are, the older the fruit.
If you want to store mangosteen, it is okay to have them in room temperature, and to slightly prolong their lives - put them into refrigerator. However, you know the rule - the freshest is the best.
Just for the curious ones, the rind is quite interesting, since it has been used for treating diseases like dysentery, and it contains a high amount of tannic acid that tastes very bitter. At some point, it has been proposed as a component to use in leather industry, although it would be an expensive one. The red juice in the rind is also said to be a very powerful staining agent (i.e. your clothes may be stained forever with it) although I didn't yet have any experience of that!
Nutritionally speaking, mangosteen contains a higher amount of sucrose (the usual sugar) than many other fruits, and it can be recognized as you eat it. It also contains a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, along with some antioxidants that help to fight cancerous changes in our body cells.