Mangoes: Public Enemy No. 1

Gothamist has a long list of things that fascinate us and one of the odder things on said list is the peek into the human psyche provided by security checkpoints (specifically the items they turn up). Luckily we're not the only ones. Sometimes it seems a week doesn't go by without a look at things turning up in airports or train stations showing up in one paper or another. But normally those stories focus on drugs or weapons, so it was with happy interest that we found this article in the Times today.

Keeping track of agricultural products moving over borders has long been a part of the job for Customs officials, one that hasn't diminished in the days of bird flu's and copious other agricultural dangers. And what actually shows up is wonderful and truly global (at least in New York). "Compared to Miami, which mostly gets South American flights, and California, which mostly gets flights from Asia," a customs officer at JFK explained to the Times, "what's amazing about this port is we get the world."

On a random day in August the customs office at JFK sounds delicious: "Bangladeshi jackfruit, Vietnamese pork sausage, Central American black corn, Nigerian garden eggs, and Pakistani Alphonso mangoes." Not to mention longan fruits, dried chickens, mints, charcuterie, duck tongues and Mangoes by the ton ("Mangoes are public enemy No. 1" one officer says).

Gothamist might be guilty of smuggling a few things over the borders ourselves (how could we not clip that Trinidadian Thyme?) but what about you? Ever just have to take that stalk of sugarcane, or the like, back with you?

And in case your curious, here is the official answer from Customs as to what you can and can't bring home with you from your trip.

Photoraphs of dried chicken and jackfruit by Don Hogan Charles for the NY Times

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Garth Johnston in Miscellaneous on August 21, 2005 12:06 PM

Comments [rss]

mrshoes

Oh man! You are so right sP.

Me thinks I have durian on the brain when I wrote that.

By any chance have you had the durian ice cream at the original chinatown ice cream place? They sure hit it on the nose with its smell...pun intended.

hijiki

i think this sort of thing is what wiped out the chestnut trees in the eastern US. chestnuts were mammoth-sized trees in the appalachian mountains until some guy brought back a plant infected with the wrong fungus and now they're all gone.

sk

years ago, my grandmother brought us an entire suitcase jammed full of mangoes when she came to visit us in the middle east. it's one of my favorite memories....a samsonite bursting with sunshine yellow orbs...i thought it was only my family that did such weird things. nowadays, i can't seem to go anywhere without bringing back gobs of chocolate...it's always great when i'm stopped (that's what i get for having a zebra patterned japanese suitcase-they always think i'm in a band)...and oodles of chocolate bars come spilling out...chocolate fixation? who me?

sp

my parents also brought a cactus back from Goa, which immediately took root and is alive and healthy.

Cara

I love plants and whenever I go somewhere with interesting plants (be it Costa Rica or the Botanical Garden) I like to take a clipping to try and root back home. Non-cactus succulents are especially easy to grow from just a single leaf.

scazza

In my 1997 trip back from India, I brought a large suitcase full of food products produced on a farm as well as an antique rug, both of which are illegal to bring back. The suitcase was stuffed to the max and we'd tied it shut to keep it from bursting. So when customs wanted to open it, I said if you open it you'll have to figure out how to get it closed. We had adults and small children sitting on it in order to get it closed the first time. They caved and let us go.

Max

Just some snake fish and some zebra mussels- didn't really like em so I dumped em in the pond out back.

Ha

I've smuggled (to name a few); frozen fish cake (mommy's signature dish), exotic fruits and veggies(longan, dragonfruit, jackfruit, custard apple, bittermelon..) and the notoriously ordorous sauce: shrimp paste sauce

Got caught once.

My friend wanted to smuggle a bottle of Vietnamese medicinal wine which had 3 copras and 1 gecko inside but didn't succeed.

dio

I applaud mrshoes for his discerning taste in fruit, but unfortunately the picture shown is not that of the excellent durian, but of the jackfruit. Giveaways are the long shape (as opposed to the durian's round), and the blunt thorns. Durians are much, much spikier.

sP

every time we come back from france, we smuggle in as many patés, cheeses, salamis, fruits confits, saffron pistils, cookies, and chunks of hashish that we can. never been caught eighter!