Lagawan

Durian: Smells like hell but taste like heaven?

Durian is commonly known as the “king of Fruits” due to it’s formidable look and unique yet overpowering odor. Some people regard this odor as fragrance while others, like me, find it offensive and disgusting. Sorry! It’s just my opinion. Well, this odor is the reason why the fruit is forbidden in some hotels and transportation in Southeast Asia.

Since I’m bias when it comes to the taste and flavor of durian for I can’t stand the smell of it, I’ll just copy paste instead what people think of the durian fruit from Wikipedia. But according to my durian-lover relatives, it’s really creamy and delicious. Hmm… What do you think?

Davao’s Durian

Quoted from Wikipedia regarding Durian’s flavor and odor:

The unusual flavour and odour of the fruit have prompted many people to express diverse and passionate views ranging from deep appreciation to intense disgust. Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

While Wallace cautions that “the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable”, later descriptions by westerners are more graphic. British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is “like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory.” Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to “completely rotten, mushy onions.” Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”

Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:

“… its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”