| My bravery for today... |
[Oct. 11th, 2007|04:53 pm] |
 I have just had a durian.
What can I say? Most of you, I am going to guess, have NEVER heard of this fruit (except possibly ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wombat1138, who once shocked us by having canned white jelly fungus in her parent's cupboard). I had only heard OF it on the Food Network or something. Let me tell you... even though it was in a shrink-wrapped box filled with three cling-wrapped logs... all inside a plastic grocery bag... you could smell it coming in the room.
How do I describe it? I am sure many people have tried. My description is like a combination of leeks, gasoline, rotting fruit, and old diapers. The smell has the same tang fungus has when you find it on something in your fridge. There's a dusty rotten taste that hits you through your nose, and lingers like a volatile chemical one should vent before your OSHA inspector smells it.
But my boss and the data center technician wanted to try it, based on a semi-dare "there's no such thing" said by the NOC, who became conspicuously absent when the tiny bundle arrived. I *had* to taste it, because I heard it's actually good once you get past the smell.
When we cut through the shrink wrap on the box, our eyes started to water. But it was tolerable to me and my boss, while the DC guy left the kitchen. "I am not kidding guys," he warned us, "you can taste the smell even from out here." But I got used to it pretty fast. My boss knew HOW to eat it, so he said it was just the flesh. When we unwrapped the cling wrap, the smell got no worse. In fact, the bulk of the bad smell seemed to have already floated away, and was worse in the back of the kitchen than near the flesh of the fruit. Or maybe we just got used to it.
The flesh, by the way, looked like someone had left a soggy Dim Sum sausage at the bottom of a sink. It has a kind of fibrous "skin" much like a weak cloth, and the flesh was like custard. I took a small spoonful.
It was actually pretty good! No, really! I would have eaten a whole one if I didn't worry what my stomach might do with it (and so far, so good), and I was going to get on board the Metro in 40 minutes, so I didn't want to risk my stomach going, "Out. OUT!!" The taste was like spicy mango vanilla pudding with onions, but not really in a bad way. It tasted SOOO much better than it smelled.
Really.
I love new things. |
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| Comments: |
Durian fruiti is not nearl as bad as peaple sahy it is.IT IS WORSE>
I would atempt this if I could have a choice.
I think that I might have had this, sourt of smeled like stinky feet and jellow banna pudding. Had coconut in it.
Was deep fried somehow, and has some sort of sticky stuff on it, thaqt mighht have been fish based. the way it was maded.
I've had it a few times now. The first one didn't smell so bad -- it was a trick for the later ones. I've actually eaten a lot of it -- but I found the inner flesh reminded me of nothing so much as raw chicken with the fat on it in appearance.
Did you save the seeds? *hopeful look*
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/81833653/1042739) | From: geckoman
2007-10-11 09:49 pm (UTC)
My durian adventure...such as it was. | (Link)
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Back in 2001, when I was travelling across America and Canada, I got into a conversation about durians with my uncle, who stated they were his favorite fruit EVER! And we had to find one NOW! We stopped in Calgary, Alberta and found a right nice Chinatown there and we went and found a nice durian (looks like some sort of Klingon fruit) anyway, I got the whole story of the much maligned durian and how Uncle Larry used to have to smuggle them out in his fighter jet and how they were forbidden on Thai airlines etc. Anyway, the durian we got was cheaper in Canada than they were in Thailand, much to my uncle's amazement and this one didn't smell at all (probably having that characteristic being bred out...BTW, they're growing them in California and Florida now, hence the price break.) We had it for dinner that night at our campsite, along with the roast duck we also picked up in Chinatown. The flesh of the fruit did look rather like something you'd find inside a gutted fish though, very...organ-y, I thought. Anyway, I tried it, it tasted a bit like banana pudding to me...not bad, but it didn't rocket up my list of 'favorite foods ever.'
I've seen durian (and related food products, mostly ice-creamish) plenty of times, but never actually eaten it. The thing is, if I bought any, I doubt I'd be able to coax the wombat-consort into co-eating it, so I'd be stuck with the entire batch. "Tiny bundle"? I wonder what happened to the rest of the thing; intact durian fruits look like a cross between a football and Sonic the Hedgehog, with big broad spikes all over the brown rind. Sometimes the local Asian megamart will have the entire bottom of one of those aisle-end freezers full of durian piled up on top of each other, like (borrowing from geckoman's description) a nest of Klingon tribbles. A box of durian popsicles is probably the easiest variant for me to try, if I ever get around to it.
The packaging picture -- which wasn't around yesterday -- is cool. The one's I've had were just in that sort of netting you get onions in (which meant a lot of getting poked by the spiky skin as I carried it out of the store).
Having it sealed in a plastic container probably amplified the smell. I've seen them in Harris Teeter (along with Dragonfruit). I'vefirst seen/heard of them from the online game that I play (Puzzle Pirates), as a foragable commodity. I wouldn't be opposed to trying one (I luvz da nanna puddin!). | |
