Can this mango be saved?

July 14, 2020 6:09 AM

I left home on Friday morning with two unripe mangoes on my counter. I came back Monday morning to discover one of them looking like this: sad mango. Both mangoes are still unripe but on their way. Is it worth trying to save the non-black part of the mango, or should I just toss it?
posted by ocherdraco to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

In my experience (and from what I've been told) the black is what happens when sap from the stalk gets onto the mango skin. So in the future you can probably prevent it by washing and drying the mango as soon as you get it home.

As for whether it's edible, that bit probably isn't but if the other end ripens before the black spreads you should be able to cut it off and eat that end.
posted by lollusc at 6:42 AM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I know lots of people will say that just cutting off a "bad" part doesn't mean that you get rid of all the "bad stuff," since fungi (for example) can have very long "roots." That said, I'd definitely just cut off the bad part and eat the rest. Having worked in commercial kitchens, that is 100% what they do as well.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:49 AM on July 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

I agree with fiercecupcake, the rest seems like it'd be edible.

For me, it'd depend on what the orangish part of the sad mango looked like on the inside. I'm generally on team "lop off the bad parts, eat the good parts", but not if the flesh on the other half looked brownish or otherwise suspect.
posted by Guess What at 8:24 AM on July 14, 2020

I have done it and the not black part was tasty and caused no ill effects.
posted by advicepig at 9:06 AM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Should I lop off the black part now, or wait till it’s ripe?
posted by ocherdraco at 9:17 AM on July 14, 2020