Mango
On realsimple.com, the first thing listed in the “What You Need” section is a “Y-shaped peeler.” Personally, if I see anything other than “knife,” I’m already settling for a banana. A Y-shaped peeler? More like Y am I doing this to myself? Below the “What You Need” section is a “Follow These Steps” segment, which lists five steps. Don’t get me wrong, I like mangos, but I don’t five-step-process like mangos.
If you do want to take your fruit game to the next level, however, you need to use the infamous Y-shaped peeler to remove the skin. Easy enough, but if the mango isn’t ripe, you must “keep peeling it away until the pulp is bright yellow.” What does bright yellow mean, exactly? Who decides? What if you’re color blind? Is mango pulp a different color than mango? So many questions.
If you manage to survive step one, step two is to “Determine the tallest line of the mango.” I’ve thought about this for three days, stared at countless mangoes, and I still have no idea what this means. If, somehow, by the grace of God you do successfully determine the tallest line of the mango, you must “Slice in half, avoiding the pit.” You have to cut the mango through the center, but the pit is in the center, so you must “adjust the angle of the knife if you find that you hit the pit.” Realsimple.com then tells you once again to avoid the pit. If you do not avoid the pit, it will walk into your room while you’re sleeping and skin you with a Y-shapd peeler. Once you cut around the pit and “trim the remaining flesh off,” you’re ready to actually cut the thing into edible pieces. You’ve just wasted an entire day; but hey, at least you’ve got some mango.
https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniques/preparation/cut-mango
Jackfruit
Good lord. This one takes the cake. Step one on instructables.com is to “Harvest the fruit and let it ripe” because we’re starting from the ground up here folks, harvesting our own jackfruit while surfing the internet. If you don’t live in a wi-fi forest, step one is to buy a jackfruit. Once you do that, you must “Cut the Fruit Into Halves.” Cool, that’s easy. Ha, no. Kidding. Jokes on you. Life is hard, and jackfruit is no exception.
If you happen to be on your laptop while sitting in a tree, the writer suggests you “Make a wedge of about ¾” thick and 12” long from a branch of a hard wood tree” and then “Drive about 9” of the wedge through the peduncle point into the fruit” in order to crack it. So, to cut a jackfruit so far, you need to be experienced in forestry, have a math degree, maintain the hand strength of an orangutan, and know what the word “peduncle” means.
Once you split open the fruit, step three is to “Apply Oil on Hands and Knife.” This prevents “sap from sticking to your hands and on the knife.” You might as well just start the shower now. If you do happen to escape sap free, step four is to “Expose the Bulbs.” Using that math degree, you can “remove the top inedible axis” after splitting the fruit into quarters. And if all of this wasn’t enough, there are seeds to remove from the bulbs! The article on instructables.com suggests you use the “oiled knife and hands.” That way, you can cut your fingers off and never have to cut open a jackfruit again.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Cut-Open-A-Jackfruit
Pineapple
What a pleasant looking thing. Is it a lantern? A table ornament? A Fruit? Ah, yes. It’s a fruit. It’s no jackfruit, but it does take a good knife and middling levels of commitment and competence. The first thing you need to do in order to reap the benefits of this juicy wizard is to cut the ends off. Saying goodbye to the pretty up due of the pineapple is hard, but it gets easier every time. Once you have a bald, self-conscious pineapple, you can go ahead and slice that bad boy right down the middle.
Next, you’ll have to “identify the core of the pineapple.” It’s almost a determination, but not quite. If your awareness skills are keen, “you’ll notice the fibers of the pineapple run diagonally away from the core.” You don’t need to do anything about this, but you should notice it. Now you’re ready to slice it up. So, yeah… do that. Finally, you cut above the rind on the pineapple like you would if you were to slice up a cantaloupe. And wala! You has pineapple.
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/cooking/tips/g1935/cut-whole-pineapple
Bell Pepper
First of all, green bell peppers suck. Let’s just get that out of the way. Picture a red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, because those are really the only acceptable options. Once you decide which vibrantly colored hat veggie you would like, you’re going to have to figure out how to go about cutting that little guy. I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to start at the top. Just cut the whole lid off, about a half inch down, or one twelfth of a standard male penis. That way, you can just pull the entire middle out and hold it above your head while screaming “Mwahaha your insides are MINE” as the seeds fall in your eyes and you lick your lips like the freak that you are. Once you’ve cut the top off and hollowed out the middle, cut the bottom off. Then you can unroll the pepper and cut it however you want. Sideways. Vertical. Diagonal, if you’re particularly psychopathic. It’s up to you. The world is your oyster. Or your bell pepper. Whatever. I’m not a philosopher, don’t listen to me.
Spaghetti Squash
This one is super devious. Is it spaghetti? Is it squash? Are you trying to trick me, mom? Technically, it’s just squash, but if you try hard enough you can kind of make it taste like spaghetti. The best way to make it is actually to make spaghetti squash mac n cheese. Oh man, sign me up for another! Anyways, for the sake of sakeness I’m going to assume that we aren’t insane and want to cut the spaghetti squash in a manner that produces a spaghetti-like result. The best way to do this is to cook the squash first for thirty to forty-five minutes. That way it softens up a bit and you won’t be full-send hacking at a raw squash in the kitchen and then end up taking it to the garage and using a chainsaw.
Once you slice it in half, grab a spoon and scoop out all the squashgobble. Once the squashgobble is removed with a spoon, you’ll need a fork. Spaghetti squash is great because you need to use your whole utensil cabinet. Except for the Y-shaped peeler, leave that in there. Anyways, with your fine china from Ikea, scrape the squash like you would if you were a horrible person and wanted to run your nails across a chalkboard. Just keeping doing this until all of the squash is stringy like a cheese stick.
Artichoke
“Cut a lemon in half.” These are the first words under “Step 1” in an article on craftsy.com explaining how to cut for artichoke hearts. Any time step one to cutting something is to cut something else, you know you’re either reading the wrong article, or you’re in for more than you bargained for. Lucky for you, you’re in for more than you bargained for. Well, maybe. Apparently, an “artichoke will start to brown almost instantly once it is cut,” and lemon juice helps that not happen. The browning doesn’t change the flavor of the artichoke, but it does make it look less appetizing, and God only knows what would happen if one of us had to eat a less aesthetically pleasing artichoke.
The next step is to remove the outer leaves from the artichoke. The leaves are sharp and pointy and you will stab yourself. There is no getting around this. You will be stabbed. Just take it in the chest. Next, you have to “trim the skin around the bottom and sides of the artichoke, so that you can expose the fuzzy center.” Hey baby, can I expose your fuzzy center? Wow, even for me that was disturbing to read. I mean, I’m not going to erase it but… yikes. Anyways… MOVING ON. Um… next you basically have to remove more stuff and squeeze lemon juice everywhere on everything all of the time and eventually you have your artichoke heart.
I prefer to eat my artichokes like a normal person, so the easiest way is to simply cut them in half vertically through the stem, scoop out all the fuzzy frizz, boil it for 20 minutes on medium, season it like you mean it, then stick it in the oven or on the barbeque for 10 minutes. Don’t forget the lemon. Remember, when you cut an artichoke, you should always be squirting lemon. Never stop squirting lemon. When the artichoke is in the oven, squirt lemon all over the kitchen counter and the sink. Squirt it on your husband. Squirt it on your wife. It doesn’t matter where the juice goes, just make sure that you’re squirting lemon.
Anyone else turned on? No? Just me? Okay.
https://www.craftsy.com/cooking/article/how-to-cut-vegetables-five-shortcuts/
Coconut
Throw the coconut out the window. Seriously, just do it. Save yourself the trouble. It’s not worth it. No? Okay, fine. You asked for it. Do you have a skewer? Because you need a skewer. With your skewer, you need to “Poke the three eyes… to find the one that’s soft.” I’m not sure which is easier to find, the tallest line on the mango or the third eye on the coconut, but if anyone finds out I’d sure love to know.
When you do find that soft, sleepy eye, you must push the skewer through to create a half-inch eye hole. Now you can drain all of the coconut water so you can rub it on your face later. Next, you need a meat mallet, because you’re cutting a coconut. While you hold the coconut with a towel, smack the coconut in the middle “until the shell starts cracking in half.” Don’t put that mallet away! You still need that. Once the coconut splits in half like an old piece of plywood, place it “cut side down on a flat surface” and “Tap with the mallet to loosen the flesh.” At this point I really don’t know if the Food Network is trying to train people to becomes serial killers or coconut connoisseurs, or if there is even a difference. I don’t know much of anything anymore… I don’t know much of anything.
Moving onward, since you haven’t used enough accessories already, get out your butter knife and “pry the flesh away from the shell.” Thought you were done with the accessories? Think again! Get out your vegetable peeler and add dish soap to the grocery list, because that dishwasher is gonna be a runnin. With your vegetable peeler, “peel the thin brown skin off the flesh.” Like I said, I really don’t know if we’re still talking about coconuts here…
https://www.foodnetwork.com/grilling/summer-parties/photos/how-to-break-down-a-coconut
Rambutan
What the hell is a rambutan? Well, glad you asked! A rambutan is an Asian fruit that looks like a gay sea urchin. Once you have a ripe rambutan, which is when the stems start to turn black from green, you “Cut a slit in the skin” while “gripping both tips.” Then, you want to act like you’re cutting it in half, but don’t cut it in half. You must be gentle with the rambutan. The rambutan holds many secrets. Next, you “Cut gently, severing the hairy, leathery skin without piercing the flesh.” Okay seriously if there’s someone out there who is really into cutting rambutans and coconuts I would probably stay the hell away.
Anyways, you’ll go about half way around the rambutan, and then you can open it up and see what sits inside: a gross jelly pearl looking thing a ma jig. Once you squeeze the bottom of the rambutan to pop out the flesh ball, you’re pretty much ready to eat it. Oh and there’s an evil seed in the middle that kills you or whatever if you eat it so that’s cool.
https://www.wikihow.com/Eat-a-Rambutan
Pumpkin
Have you ever seen the movie, Saw? What about a saw, have you seen a saw? Do you have a saw? If you don’t have a saw, get a saw. Unless you have a small pumpkin and an epic chef’s knife, you need a saw. Could you imagine? Dad says he’s making dinner and then you hear the chainsaw firing up in the garage. You think, “I thought he said he was making dinner.” You walk out into the garage and he’s halfway through a massive pumpkin, screaming at the top of his lungs. You walk back into the house and say nothing.
Anyways, if you do manage to get the pumpkin open, you can kind of just do what you do with a cantaloupe and scoop out all of the seed demons and cut the skin off. If you’re weird you can just eat chunks of pumpkin or you can be civilized and make a pie.
Banana
Okay, this one isn’t about cutting anything, it’s actually an intervention. What you probably consider the “bottom” of the banana is actually where you want to peel from. Not the “top” with the nice looking handle. Grabbing that and ripping is a great way to ruin a banana. Simply flip the banana upside down and stick your finger in the soft bottom and peel. Super easy. Life changer. World changer. Everything is solved. Peace has been achieved.
