Growing up, I never understood why some people found it necessary to use a bagel guillotine. It’s easy enough to cut a bagel with a sharp knife, and it avoids squishing the bagel the way a slicer does. Part of my rejection of the tool is probably New York Jewish snobbishness (coupled with fear that if I ever embraced such a shanda, I’d be required to return my virtual circumcision and fountain pen). But it also comes from a sense that using such tools makes the whole process of bagel eating less sensual and more antiseptic.

As such, I’m agnostic about the Oxo mango slicer until I actually get a chance to try one out for myself. On the one hand, if you watch the video below, you’ll see that it makes very quick work of a mango, turning it into two halves and the seed in no time flat. And honestly, I’m better at and more interested in mango eating than mango cutting.

On the other, I wonder if the tool exists because of the big deal that non-desis make about how messy mango eating is. I remember once somebody on the radio solemnly intoned “mangos should only be eaten naked and in the ocean.” My mother scoffed and replied “White people don’t know how to eat mangos, otherwise they wouldn’t make such a mess.” Sometimes I lose the fruit under all of the “exotic” subtext going on and I don’t know how much of this machine’s appeal lies in this myth of the messy, untamable mango.

Will any of you admit to having used a tool to (ahem) split the mango? If so, did it increase or decrease your pleasure?

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