Mangology: The Study of Eating a Mango

Mango season is a time I look forward to each year. A time when the sumptuous tropical fruit can be bought at roughly C$1 for two. I love eating mangoes - they're my favorite fruit.

But there's an art to preparing and eating a mango. Where points are graded upon several factors (awarded 1 - 5 points in each category):

1. Convenience: Opposite of degree of difficulty
2. Performance: How fast you can prepare and eat the mango
3. Cleanliness: How cleanly mango consumption can be performed
4. Maximization: How much mango meat you can eat off one mango
5. Aesthetics: How pretty it looks
6. Servability: How well it can be served or shared

I've tried several different methods of cutting mango, and here're a summary of a few of these - along with my recommendation.

A) The Porcupine

This is the way my mom would prepare mangos for us to eat when we lived at home.

Steps

a) Cut both hemispheres of the mango off the pit.
b) On each half, incise hash marks down to the peel, without puncturing.
c) Flip the mango half (well, technically less than half) inside out for the meat to pop outwards.
d) Eat the individual pop-out cubes.
e) Cut or peel off the skin on the remaining pit slice and eat the meat off the pit directly.

Grading

1) Convenience: 2
Not difficult, but not convenient - especially the eating part. And you'll also be limited to staying around at the sink until you finish eating.
2) Performance: 2
Not really a time-saver with all precision cutting and picking at the mango meat off the flipped out halves.
3) Cleanliness: 1
By the end of this, you'll have mango juice all over your face from digging into the porcupine quills - and probably hands that need cleaning from eating the pit. Not to mention there's likely to be lots of dripping and a stream of mango juice down your forearm.
4) Maximization: 3
Difficult to eat cleanly, leaving lots of leftover meat on the peel - lest you should spend more time scraping it with your teeth.
5) Aesthetics: 5
Full marks for presentation, as far as amateur mango-cutting goes.
6) Servability: 2
Unless you're sharing a mango with one other person, this isn't the way to go. No one will want your sloppy seconds here.

Total Result

15 points out of a possible 30


B) The Slice-n'-Dice

This is one way my coworker serves mango pieces at the office. His family grows mangos in Southern Taiwan.

Steps

a) With a fruit peeler, take off the mango skin.
b) With naked mango in one hand, and fruit knife in other hand, shave off large slices of the mango into a bowl.
c) Further cut the slices into smaller cubes.
d) Suckle and nibble at the pit until it's cleaned.
e) Wash hands and eat the bowled pieces with a fork.

Grading

1) Convenience: 3.5
Not as easy as it seems to cut off large slices, but eating with a fork sure is convenient.
2) Performance: 3
Takes time to peel and slice the mango. Eating may be easier, but certainly not faster.
3) Cleanliness: 3
The first stage isn't too clean with the peeling and slicing, but eating afterwards doesn't get much cleaner.
4) Maximization: 5
Shaving the mango reduces wasted meat.
5) Aesthetics: 3
A bowl of mango chunks. There are prettier things.
6) Servability: 5
Small pieces make sharing easy. Probably the best way to go if you have one mango and many mouths.

Total Result

22.5 points out of a possible 30


C) The Big Simple

After several runs of trial and error, this is the method I settled on. Maybe many people already eat this way, but I came up with this way of eating myself.

Steps

a) Cut both hemispheres of the mango off the pit.
b) Half each hemisphere again (to have four quarters).
c) Eat each quarter by peeling back the skin and eating it like an orange slice.
d) Cut or peel off the skin on the remaining pit slice and eat the meat off the pit directly.

Grading

1) Convenience: 5
Four cuts and you're just about done.
2) Performance: 5
From start to finish, I can wolf down a mid-sized mango in about 2 minutes.
3) Cleansiness: 4
Hard to avoid getting dirty hands eating around the pit, but the quarters can eaten without direct contact with mango meat.
4) Maximization: 4
Peeling the skin off the mango leaves a bit of fiber on it - still, not too bad.
5) Asthetics: 2
It gets marks for being simplistic. Sort of a New York versus Paris.
6) Servability: 4.5
Easy to share with up to 3 other people.

Total Result

24.5 points out of a possible 30

I don't normally care for asthetics when I eat a mango. So, discounting that category, the Big Simple gets 22.5 out of 25. And hence, I recommend The Big Simple for its optimized and simplistic nature.

Mango on!