I love cooking, and I love gadgets. Therefore, I especially love kitchen gadgets. I got to have a little fun back in the fall when I wrote about cheap alternatives to wicked expensive kitchen gadgets for The Boston Globe. (Though secretly I’d love to have every expensive gadget there is.)
When I was working on that “Frugal Foodies” story last October, I used a few Oxo products as my cheap alternatives for a juicer and an can opener. Afterward, the company started sending some of their gadgets for me to test out. The one that really stuck out was the Oxo Steel series Mango Splitter.
I’m not much of a mango guy, and I’ve had bad experiences with products designed to cut or slice one specific kind of item. One-piece apple corers are a pain in the ass to clean, and I once had a cheap one snap apart while I was using it and hit me in the face. Garlic presses are even harder to clean (though a sewing needle works). I even once saw a $5 plastic “banana slicer.” That last one got me thinking — if you need to buy a product just to cut your fruit, then you’ve got all sorts of problems that a banana slicer is not going to fix.
But after doing some research and doing some cutting and doing some tasting — mangoes are delicious BTW — I’ve found out that cutting and coring a mango is an utter pain in the ass.
The Oxo Steel Mango Splitter ends up being a useful alternative to a sticky mess with a knife. It’s solid, with rubber grips and no detachable parts. The splitter is sharp, and the stainless steel construction is durable.
You hold the mango in place, then put both hands on the splitter and push down slowly but firmly. This splits the mango perfectly to remove the seed.
Cleanup is easy. Just make sure you rinse it off each time. I wouldn’t bother putting it in the dishwasher.
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