#Grant knighthood to free#

The king might take on a task as a favor for another king or in obedience to the Pope.

Knights fought for their lords who in turn fought for their king. Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland) was written about Charlemagne’s most famous knight. His knights kept him safe in battle and won him many victories. There have been soldiers on horseback for thousands of years, but what we think of as medieval knights first came into being during the time of King Charlemagne (Charles the Great). Mangosteen is a balance of flavor and texture - a fruit fit for a queen.The simple answer would be a soldier who fights on horseback while wearing armor, but there’s much more to being a knight. It’s tangy, but won’t make your lips pucker. The soft, white flesh melts in the mouth. If you’ve never tried mangosteen before, the flavor alone warrants a trip to Southeast Asia. Even Snapple has their own bottled version of peach mangosteen juice. Mangosteen juice is also packaged and sold - in bottles, cartons, and even cold-pressed - both on the internet and through health shops like GNC and The Vitamin Shoppe. Canned mangosteen can be found at most East Asian grocery stores and can even be purchased online through Amazon. However, there are still year round opportunities to consume mangosteen - as long as you don’t need to have them fresh. Apple Jr., wrote that, “No other fruit, for, is so thrillingly, intoxicatingly luscious… with so precise a balance of acid and sugar, as a ripe mangosteen.” Even fruit tourists make the journey to Southeast Asia to get a taste New York Times writer, R. One of Thailand’s largest music festivals, the Mangosteen Music Festival, is named after the beloved fruit. A Facebook fan page for mangosteen has accrued almost 8,000 likes, with fans sharing health-related articles and cries of passion with fellow mangosteen enthusiasts. In addition to that, mangosteen season isn’t particularly long: it extends from April to July, and the journey to America can sometimes be too lengthy for a fruit that is delicate and spoils quickly.īecause of mangosteen’s scarcity, the fruit has acquired a cult-like following. Cravings for mangosteen had to be satiated with smuggled fruit and invitations to the Thai consulate.

#Grant knighthood to free#

Imported mangosteen have to go through a process of irradiation - exposure to ionizing radiation - to ensure the fruits are safe for consumption and free from any pests. Up until 2007, it was illegal to import mangosteens for fear of introducing Asian fruit flies, a cumbersome insect, to the US. That being said, it's extremely rare to find fresh mangosteens stateside. In fact, Asian markets in New York and Los Angeles sell mangosteens for upwards of $18 per pound (compared to Thailand where you can get a kilogram, which is a little over two pounds, for about $3). The fruit also doesn’t fare well in transport it spoils quickly, and is therefore highly marked up when sold in non-local spaces. It only thrives in very specific climates and attempts to bring the tree to similar environments - Florida, California, and Hawaii - haven’t been very successful. Today, the plant grows throughout Southeast Asia in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and even southwest India - with Thailand being the largest exporter of the purple fruit. Funny enough, the Thai word for mangosteen, mangkhut, is very similar to the Thai word for crown, or mongkrut.Īlthough mangosteens are believed to have originated from the Sunda Islands of Indonesia, the flourishing trees were allegedly domesticated in Thailand and Myanmar. It’s also said that back in the late 1800s, Queen Victoria proclaimed she would grant knighthood to any person who could return to England with fresh mangosteens in tow (no one was ever able to). It's a dark purple fruit, small and round like a baseball that - when squeezed - cracks open to reveal pearls of white, delicate flesh.

In Thailand, mangosteen is known as the queen of fruit (next to his majesty the durian, which is considered king) for its surprisingly complex flavor, nutritional value, and medicinal properties passed down through local Thai wisdom. It's called the mangosteen - a fleshy fruit native to Southeast Asia with a flavor best described as transcendent. While it might sound like a creation straight out of the brain of Willy Wonka, such a thing actually exists. Imagine a fruit that tastes like a cross between a peach and a strawberry, has sectional pieces like a tangerine, and is juicy like lychee.