My Affair With Durian
While I was in Asia, I took the opportunity to try durian.
My curiosity about durian stems from a show on the Food Network where Andrew Zimmern went to a tropical country and stated that the smell and taste of durian disgusted him.
How, I wondered, can a man who eats bugs on a food show be disgusted by a fruit?
In Hong Kong, I found out! I went to the supermarket and was overcome by a cloying odor I had come to recognize as durian. I watched an older lady eviscerate the fruit, which has interior pods. While I was wishing I could try it, I realized she was packaging the pods. I selected the smallest quantity obtainable, at about $1.75 in value, and congratulated myself, as if I had any influence at all over synchronicity.
Under the skin of the pod is a whitish flesh that tastes much like French Onion dip with sugar. If it was spread on crackers or spooned into endive, maybe it wouldn’t mess so much with one's mind. I found it difficult to accept as a fruit. Anyway, one or two fingers full was enough for me! I chased it with some sparkling water laced with elder flower, another new flavor for me, but durian really should be chased with a meat cleaver.
Whoo . . . even with the chaser and a knotted plastic bag in the trash, durian continued to reach out. Celebrated in some parts of Asia, durian has the distinction of being both feted and fetid. Oy . . . at close quarters the smell is a teensy bit like carrion. Haw . . . and now, I get it.
Phew.
But I stick by my characterization of the onion dip – dip with too much sugar and the consistency of hummus rather than cream cheese. Not bad so much as not quite right. Like God created potato chips and, declaring, “this needs something to go with it,” created durian but didn’t quite hit it . . . perhaps a little like when He created Adam.
Finally, I had to double bag the leftover durian and sit across the room.
King Kong probably smelled a little like this by the time the Manhattan Brotherhood of Refuse Collectors got all of him removed from the base of the Empire State Building. The cracker and endive people probably made a fortune that year.
My curiosity about durian stems from a show on the Food Network where Andrew Zimmern went to a tropical country and stated that the smell and taste of durian disgusted him.
How, I wondered, can a man who eats bugs on a food show be disgusted by a fruit?
In Hong Kong, I found out! I went to the supermarket and was overcome by a cloying odor I had come to recognize as durian. I watched an older lady eviscerate the fruit, which has interior pods. While I was wishing I could try it, I realized she was packaging the pods. I selected the smallest quantity obtainable, at about $1.75 in value, and congratulated myself, as if I had any influence at all over synchronicity.
Under the skin of the pod is a whitish flesh that tastes much like French Onion dip with sugar. If it was spread on crackers or spooned into endive, maybe it wouldn’t mess so much with one's mind. I found it difficult to accept as a fruit. Anyway, one or two fingers full was enough for me! I chased it with some sparkling water laced with elder flower, another new flavor for me, but durian really should be chased with a meat cleaver.
Whoo . . . even with the chaser and a knotted plastic bag in the trash, durian continued to reach out. Celebrated in some parts of Asia, durian has the distinction of being both feted and fetid. Oy . . . at close quarters the smell is a teensy bit like carrion. Haw . . . and now, I get it.
Phew.
But I stick by my characterization of the onion dip – dip with too much sugar and the consistency of hummus rather than cream cheese. Not bad so much as not quite right. Like God created potato chips and, declaring, “this needs something to go with it,” created durian but didn’t quite hit it . . . perhaps a little like when He created Adam.
Finally, I had to double bag the leftover durian and sit across the room.
King Kong probably smelled a little like this by the time the Manhattan Brotherhood of Refuse Collectors got all of him removed from the base of the Empire State Building. The cracker and endive people probably made a fortune that year.
posted by Exxuendo at 10:39 AM
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