Get tropical with mangoes and carambola

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 4, 2001

Mangoes, sweet and drippingly juicy, are here. So is the carambola, tantalizingly exotic with its other, more descriptive name, starfruit.

Some of the mangoes that will be in produce departments this month will come from Puerto Rico and Florida. Brooks Tropicals Inc. in Homestead is shipping both, says Yvette Ramos, the company's marketing coordinator. Definite differences exist between the two, she says.

"Florida mangoes, they taste better. They are bigger and they are much sweeter, and they also have a lot more color. They are mainly "orangey' red. The only bad thing about them is that they don't last very long on the shelf, probably three to five days," Ms. Ramos says.

On the other hand, Puerto Rican mangoes boast a shelf life of seven to ten days.

"They also go through hot water treatment to cleanse all the pesticides that they put on the fruit," she says.

Florida mangoes, on the other hand, are too delicate to survive that treatment, she says.

Ms. Ramos advises against storing mangoes in the refrigerator, because they lose their taste.

"If you leave it out to ripen and eat it at the right time, that's when you are going to get the best-tasting fruit," she says.

Her company sends its mangoes to supermarkets while they are still green, which means that three to four days go by before the fruit is ready to be eaten, she says. A ripe mango will yield to gentle pressure, but its spicy aroma is an even more reliable sign that the fruit is at its prime.

Mangoes can be used in shakes, fruit salads and sauces. They also can be made into marinades and barbecue sauces.

Like mangoes, the carambola can be enjoyed simply, on its own. The star-shaped fruit also can be employed as an interesting garnish or called on to lend its unusual flavor to any number of recipes, including drinks and desserts.

Other tropical fruits in season this month include Florida avocados; mamey, a brown fruit with a sweet, orange pulp; and papayas. Papayas sold by Brooks Tropicals are trademarked Sunrise Solo and Caribbean Red. Ms. Ramos says the Solo is smaller than Caribbean Red, but sweeter. Both varieties are grown in Belize.

More everyday fare, including tomatoes, watermelons, peaches and blueberries, will come from neighbors such as Georgia this month. Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in LaGrange, says the state's peaches still are available but that the season will begin to taper off this month.

Produce

July is the month for apricots, beans, blueberries, cherries, sweet corn, cucumbers, grapes, mangoes, nectarines, okra, peaches, peppers, plums, summer squash, tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, limes, starfruit or carambola, papayas and mamey.

Seafood

Once more, the news about seafood is good. Supplies are plentiful and prices are low.

Shark season opened Sunday, bringing with it shark fillets that are expected to sell for around $3.49 a pound.

Fresh gulf red snapper also will be available this month. Tropical Storm Allison kept boats close to shore in June, so anglers are being allowed to harvest the fish for a few days this month.

"We're on a quota system with snapper," explains Gib Migliano of Save On Seafood in Gulfport.

"We are allowed to fish for the first 10 days of every month until we reach the quota."

Expect to pay around $3.99 a pound for whole red snapper, while fillets will cost about $8.99 a pound, Migliano says.

Lower seafood prices also will affect the cost of the ever-popular grouper. Shoppers will pay about $7.99 for fillets. Shrimp prices are expected to drop at least $2 a pound below normal, Migliano says.

"I think they'll go lower too," he said.

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