CUTTING A MANGO

This Luscious and highly nutritious tropical fruit comes in all shapes and sizes-oblong, round, pear, kidney, even long and thin. Perhaps the one and only negative to this juicy package of edible paradise is its large, flat, difficult-to-remove seed.

To maneuver around the seed and successfully reap as much of the delicious flesh as possible, follow these four simple steps.

Then, add mangoes to fruit salads or chutney or simply eat plain with a dollop of nonfat yogurt.

1 Stand the ripe mango, stem end up, on cutting surface. Hold upright with one hand, and with a paring knife, slice through flesh on one side of the stem, curving around the seed. Repeat on the other side of the stem. You will have two disklike portions of fruit.

2 Hold each fruit disk in the palm of your hand and score with the paring knife down to the skin in a checkerboard pattern. Be careful not to slit the outer skin.

3 From the skin side, gently push up in the center of the disk, exposing the cubes of mango flesh. With the paring knife, cut the chunks of flesh away from the peel.

4 To extract flesh from the remaining center (seed) section, cut the fleshy sides away from the center. These pieces of the mango will resemble half-moons. Again, score the fruit and cut away from the skin.

Beware of Mango Mouth, Just don't eat the skin!!!