Purple Mangosteen

I had never eaten (or even seen) a mangosteen before coming to Thailand. Its delicate, soft, sweet, tart, flesh can't be eaten without getting juice all over your hands. But they are so good that they are worth it.

My friends said mangosteen has a lot of antioxidants (at least I think that's what they said...antioxidant wasn't on any of my vocab lists yet.) They also said the outside skin is used for dying silk woven into the beautiful Thai scarves and other things made here.