What is the easiest and best way to cut a mango? - How To

Dec 13, 2024

Summer's here and the mangoes are on, baby!

Mangoes are loved worldwide, but how to cut this sweet, juicy fruit is a matter of both tradition and practicality. From Thailand to Mexico, people have their own unique ways of slicing up the golden orbs. But ask any Aussie, and they’ll tell you that the ‘hedgehog’ style is clearly the superior method – and for good reason.

In places like India and the Philippines, mangoes are often peeled, then sliced into wedges or chunks. In the United States, the ‘grid method’ is popular, where you cut the mango in a checkerboard pattern, scoop out the flesh, and enjoy the cubes in one bite-sized scoop.

One particularly psychotic example made the rounds this week on TikTok as the US Surgeon General took a scalpel to a mango and peeled the whole thing as you would a potato. (Are you right, mate?) While these methods are fine, they lack the flair and efficiency of the Australian hedgehog technique.

Sticky rice with mango and salted coconut

How to cut a mango

Australia’s signature mango prep is simple yet elegant. You slice off the two cheeks of the mango, score them into a crisscross pattern, then push the skin inside out, creating a spiky ‘hedgehog’ shape. This not only showcases the fruit in all its glorious, vibrant colour, but it also makes for efficient eating, as you can greedily scrape every morsel of flesh off the skin with your front teeth. Perfect.

But the ceremony of summer mangoes starts long before the eating. It starts in the car.

We’re not sure when it happened, but at some point in history, every Australian agreed that the proper way to purchase mangoes was by the tray-load, on a scorching hot day, from some guy’s van parked on the shoulder of a highway.

MANGOES. 6 FOR $12.

A slightly nerve-wracking swerve. A slam of the boot. And the sweet perfume of tropical fruit fills the car as everyone impatiently urges the traffic lights to stay green so you can get home and dig in.

Of course, no mango-eating experience is complete without your mum’s shrieks of, “Eat it over the bath!” as juice runs down your grinning cheeks, a sticky reminder of why mango season is so eagerly awaited and why the hedgehog method is, undeniably, the best.