Never leave the Philippines without eating these fruits, and taking a bunch with you when you fly home.
Mangosteen
While popular in Southeast Asia, the Mangosteen in the Philippines is the best variant in the world. Mangosteen is plenty and cheap in the country. You can find it anywhere, from wet markets to supermarkets to street stalls.
There are also many other products made from Mangosteen, from coffee to juice to daily supplements, even a candy and cookies!
Banana (local: saging)
Like Mangosteen, Philippine bananas are the best in the world. There was even a joke how a Philippine banana was exported in the West, and a local restaurant bought banana supplies from those countries and used it, hence, their very simple banana dish (that is ₱20 elsewhere) is worth a Big Mac (₱200). Without them realising the banana they imported originated from their neighbour.
Of course it's a joke. Or maybe not. (We did have an incident like this decades ago, for shoes. Marikina-made shoes were exported. Branded. And then that brand sold it here. 🤣)
Trivia: An endemic banana, "abaca", is also used to produce "Manila Hemp", which is expensive.
Mangoes (local: mangga)
Yes, the best in the world too! Some of our Asian neighbours visit the Philippines just to eat Philippine mangoes, because it's very expensive in their country.
Pineapple (local: pinya)
The best? Well, some of those popular foreign pineapple brands actually have farms here in the Philippines because they found that Philippine-produced pineapples are better.
Trivia: Pineapple was brought here during the colonial era. It's not endemic.
Trivia: Pineapple fibres are used to make clothes, and are usually expensive. It's the most common Philippine linen. Filipinos were the first to create clothes from Pineapple fibres. In fact, like the Coconut, Filipinos found use to everything Pineapple, generally, nothing goes to waste.
