Eating Fruit Is Not a Crime (But Selling It Might Be)

Mangosteens make such a lightning-quick appearance on the New York produce scene that they’re very easy to miss– partly because they aren’t grown in the quantities that oranges, apples, or even lychees are, and partly because they’re illegal to import fresh into the US. When you do spot them, you’ll usually find them in Asian markets, often in an unlabeled container or cleverly disguised among the eggplants, which they resemble if you squint your eyes. This weekend, we found several produce vendors hawking fresh mangosteens in Chinatown. One kept them in a large white bucket next to his chair– a bucket he covered up in a flash when he saw me eyeing them, while the others were more brazen about their trade. And in fairness, some of them may actually be selling legal mangosteens: pre-frozen fruits or fresh ones from Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

But really, we doubt it. Frozen mangosteens give themselves away immediately because their internal flesh turns mushy and translucent, almost clear, when it is thawed. None of the five fruits we purchased on Baxter Street appeared to have been frozen. Then there’s the domestic mangosteen that avoids the ban because it is treated for pest infestations more thoroughly than its Asian cousins– in theory, we’d find these in every local supermarket, but in practice, the mangosteens grown domestically get shipped off to a more lucrative market: Japan. So unless our Chinatown produce vendor managed to get his hands on a case or two of these prime fruits, we’ re guilty of buying contraband fruit.

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