I’ve been fascinated with the Mamey since I first had a mamey milkshake at a Cuban restaurant some years ago. Creamy and sweet, I always look for mamey ice cream when I’m in Mexicao, and have a favorite place in Los Angeles.

It was a long time before I saw the actual fruit in a store, but I finally found it in the fruit section of a Wal-Mart in Campeche, Mexico. About half of the brown torpedo-shaped fruits were soft, like a deflated football, while the rest were as hard as rocks. Being unfamiliar with the fruit, I asked a woman customer, and she said I should get a hard one. I was disappointed to learn that my trusty travel knife couldn’t make a dent in it, so my first mamey experience was delayed.

I was recently at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles, and grabbed a soft mamey that the store owner told me was perfectly ripe. Not surprisingly, it was kind of mushy inside, but what did surprise me was the not-too-sweet carroty taste. I’m going to be tasting my ice cream more critically in the future.

Here’s a nice article in which the writer suggests that a mamey should be somewhere between firm and soft… or juuuuuust riiiiight, I suppose.

http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3596-mamey-fruit-mexico-s-sweet-winter-treat