What Kate Ate

So, I’ve never really liked mangoes. It’s not that I was scarred by a bad mango encounter. But they’ve always tasted….chemical-ish….to me. Like a delicious fruit that’s been dunked in a bucket of bleach. I do, however, like mango-flavored things, though it is often the case that fruit flavors taste nothing like the fruits themselves. Take banana. Banana-flavored things are, in general, nauseating. One exception to this rule are banana Runts. Are these vegan? I haven’t yet had the opportunity to check. It’s a shame if not, because they are the only example of delicious banana flavoring I know of. Don’t even get me started on banana Laffy Taffy. It is evil and putrescence in candy form.

Did I say this was about mangoes? So I really want to like mangoes. It’s silly, really. But they’re so darn pretty with their greenness and their pinkness and their yellowness. And lots of recipes use mango. So, I’ve been buying it. And I must say, it’s not half as bad as I remember. I learned from videojug.com how to cut it into pretty cubes, which already makes it twice as yummy as it would be otherwise.

So, I’ve been enjoying mangoes in my fruit salads and sometimes (blasphemous!) by themselves. They’re nice for something different. They’ll never come close to my beloved pineapple, but I think we can get along just fine.

Update: Runts are probably not vegan.  They contain stearates, which often come from animal fats.  Le sigh.