Eternal Question number 65. What does a durian fruit taste like? 26, April 2007

While in Bali, I kept a holiday diary, it lasted one day. Cue Michael Jackson from his and Paul McCartney’s nadir “The Girl is Mine” where Michael says – “I’m sorry, I’m a lover not a fighter” or in my case, “I’m sorry I’m a starter not a finisher.”*  The world is literally littered with the projects which I’ve started. Oh dear, where was I? Yes, my holiday “diary”. Here it is.

*My bid for the laboured joke of the year award.

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Today I experienced my first taste of Tamarillo and Durian fruit. Tamarillo looks like passion fruit which should be orange and smooth not purple and wrinkly and tastes pretty similar. Durian. Hmmm…

Ok, imagine something that looks like an enormous two lobed conker – a kind of conker hybrid, perhaps – the spikes aren’t sharp or pointy enough for it to be a spiky conker but they’re too big for it to be a smooth one. Imagine the skin of a lychee but with a but more er… texture.

Here it is –

Durian fruit are famous for smelling grim and tasting great. What durian does not share with other great tasting items like Amis De Chambertain, Epoisse, Pont l’Eveque, Stinking Bishop, Munster or Goat is that it’s not savoury and it’s not a cheese which most of the other great tasting vile smelling things, apart from goat that is, tend to be.

So, after seeing them for sale at the side of the road we mentioned we’d like to try one and our kind guide Made (pronounced Maddy) negotiated the purchase for us. I suspect this was after seeing me buy some cashews in the market which approximated to gold dust in value per gramme. Put me in a country where the currency is in hundreds of thousands and I get completely confused – I thought 100,000 was a bargain, actually, 10,000 would have been a bargain, 100,000 was well… not. Hey ho… I digress, where was I? Oh yes… Durian.

So while I watched the negotiations, I couldn’t help noticing that some of the durian on offer were looking a bit rank, mouldy in parts with fruit flies buzzing around them. I suspect Durian may be a bit like Stilton, some people like stilton rank and salty and vile, others – me, for example – enjoy our stilton young. Made chose a durian which was not mouldy or flyblown in other words, I suspect he was kindly (and sensibly) protecting our sensitive western palattes from the onslaught, plumping for young and mild rather than old and rank – thank you Made!

So nostrils twitching, we watch as the lady prizes it open. The smell hits us immediately but it is not what I expected at all, not nearly as bad – I had assumed “rank” would equal “pooh” but this was not the case – although it is, undoubtedly, grim.

Thank your lucky stars the world wide web is odourosly mute.

How to describe it. Well if you grew up in Britain in the 1970s and 80s describing the smell is of durian is easy it’s gas. Durian smells of British Gas but natural gas has its smell added – did British Gas use eau de durian perhaps? Who knows… Except of course that it isn’t just gas and anyway, not everyone understands what 1970s and 80s British Gas smells like.

Imagine onions without the tears or if you’ve ever bought fresh leeks and then realised, stuck in the confined space of the bus on the way home, how powerfully leeks can smell you are some way there. It isn’t strictly leek though, there is something sulphuric too.

So, in summary, leeks, sulphur oh yes and not forgetting a dash – a really tiny hint, squashed on the road 10 miles away levels of tiny – of the nicer bits of skunk with additional sugary undertones. Not a lovely smell but not completely off putting… Inside it’s divided into segments, much like the inside of a horse chestnut but imagine the conkers inside have a layer of fruity covering over them rather than being au naturel.

At first glance it’s a greenish white sausage-shaped chunk, unpleasantly reminiscent of the innards of something only the wrong colouring for that. Although Mr BC swears it’s actually spot on, I am not so sure but then, he’s seen tripe close up and I haven’t. It certainly brings to mind the phrase “internal organs” although which one, where and in what kind of animal I can’t say for sure. It looks vaguely alien – the sort of thing you might expect to dig out of a giant space bug or which would feature as a side order on the menu in Mos Eisley Cantina.

The pieces don’t give the impression of being easy to separate but it turns out they are and that picking the seeds out one by one is pretty straightforward.

The texture is bizarre, it reminded me of panacotta in colour and gloopyness but the consistency is wrong for panacotta. Panacotta is too elastic. Likewise, flower and water paste.

You know when weightlifters rub their hands in that white chalk before attempting a lift, well durian flesh is rather how I imagine the gunk that’s left behind on the bar would look after the weightlifter has finished. Sort of like thick flower and water paste only with no elasticity at all. It sticks to your hands, too, in a way that I can only describe as disturbing. The closest I can get to describing it accurately is matt custard.

When it comes to taste, matt custard is a pretty good description, too. Well, for me at any rate. It has those soft, rounded taste, tones although there is no doubt it’s a fruit but the fruitiness is more the banana end of the fruit acidity and general fruityness spectrum rather than say, the passionfruit end. Not that it tastes remotely like banana but then nothing I’ve ever eaten does taste remotely like bannana except for other bananas. Durian, same deal. It’s got the banana-y non acidic fruit deal going on but it tastes like Durian and should imagine that if I were to search for something which tastes like the durian I ate today chances are the only thing which would measure up would be another durian.

So… Did I like it? Hmm… not sure about that one. At the time I ate it, yes, for pretty much the same reasons I like custard, sweet, gloopy, not exactly runny consistency. In fact, at the time I gave it a 7 out of 10 although I was tempted to bump up its score because it deserved bonus points for sheer weirdness.

Do I like it now?

Well, after 2 hours in a car with the other half I’m not too sure. I don’t recommend post durian burps either, ack they were gopping all smell like raw onion burps are only raw durian smell is much nastier than raw onion. Then again, it could simply have been the all pervading pong from the uneaten half of the durian leeching through the plastic bag it was sitting in behind me. Post durian pooh* I am yet to enjoy but I suspect it will be grim.

So would I eat it again? Um… I think so, although I wouldn’t really know until somebody served one up to me. Would I recommend it? Of course, nobody should pass up the chance to experience something that bizarre. If you are ever offered one you should definitely eat it… if you can. Mr BC thought it was vile but me and Made, we ate half of it.

*With hindsight, I can confirm it wasn’t too bad, unlike say… roast onions or chile, durian has no negative colonic effects, nasal or otherwise.