That King of Fruit... The Durian

Friday was a day set aside for visiting the plant nurseries down south in Johor near a town called Muar. Thousands of acres of plants are available for industrial use. This isn't the place for weekend gardeners to browse around trying to decide which Bougainvillea would look nice next to the Murraya. These are the nurseries where one can purchase hundreds of trees of varying species and thousands upon thousands of shrubs and groundcovers in every imaginable shape, size, texture, and color. My job sometimes requires that I visit these places with the Client and Contractor to settle the final selection of plants...

But this is not about the nurseries. This is about the real purpose of going to Muar and the real purpose the Client wants to tag along. This is about eating that King of Fruit, the mighty Durian which Muar has in abundance.

Now I could go on about the durian's creamy textured meat somewhat similar to a pudding but firmer, or it's arresting smell that has been described in terms of skunk spray to liquid petroleum gas. Or I could talk about the rich flavor when you first pop one of the mushy yet firm meaty seeds into your mouth, I could do all of that but Wikipedia does a pretty fine job of it. For example on the smell here's what wiki had to say:

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-sh*t, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.

The joys of eating durian extend beyond the love it or hate it taste (I happen to love it) It extends beyond the status of King granted to this fruit (along with a price for such royal recognition). It is a food enjoyed in part to the fellowship of a group of people that share the common love of sitting around a fly invested area eating pig poop smelling custard meat out of a prickly shell so sharp it will draw blood out of your pasty covered fingers unless you know what you're doing or wearing a gloves... and those kind of people are pretty cool!


Durians grow on trees. When they get tired of hanging on they let go and fall to the ground with a loud thud. That's when they're best eaten.


This is a durian stall. It reeks of durian and people eating durian.


Durians come with all kinds of exotic names like 'Wildcat', 'Red Prawn', 'D24', 'D101', etc... they all taste slightly different.


This is the fleshy insides of a durian... before the flies smell it.