Its taste and smell, however, take some getting used to. And yet, despite its stinky reputation, it can be found practically everywhere: In curries, cakes, and even ice cream.
For visitors, biting into the fruit can be an utterly confusing and contradictory experience. Here are some outsider opinions from the past years.
Being a durian lover myself, I was excited to read this article. Over to Lindsay now…. Its ungodly odor regularly causes evacuations in hospitals, shopping malls and office buildings. It postpones planes. But despite its bad reputation, tasting a durian is a lot tamer than a lot of the exotic foodstuffs Mark has eaten.
Then they go home thinking durian is just as terrible as everyone says. Would you go home thinking that cheese is awesome? Probably not. A big mistake is expecting durian to be like other fruits. In the West, our fruits are juicy, slightly acidic, and sweet in a one-dimensional, sucrose way. Durian is not. A bite of durian is a creamy explosion of incongruent flavors that lights up taste receptors all over the tongue. No food in the Western palate really compares well to durian.
Cheese comes close — sometimes. Butterscotch pudding — occasionally. Onions caramelized in wine — it depends. A durian is supposed to have subtle hints of chives mixed with powdered sugar.
My little brother likes tart Granny Smith apples. Personally, I love sweet crunchy Fujis and Galas. Just like apples, there are many varieties of durian ranging from soft as dark chocolate whipped cream to crisp like a caramel apple.
There are some types of durian you may never learn to like, in the same way some of us will never understand the buzz about goat cheese. Just ask the durian seller for help, but be aware that not all durian sellers have your best interest in mind. In some places people pay crazy amounts of money for a good one. People have stabbed each other over durian. But like pearls or anything highly coveted you can get sold a lot of fakes. As a newcomer to durian you are a sucker, and everybody in the durian business can see it.
Most tourists have no idea what a durian should be like. Then his theory has been proven correct, creating a vicious cycle. The best way to deal with this is to go to a durian seller with a good reputation, or go with a friend who knows their durian. Until you know what to look for, avoid buying durian from small carts wheeling through tourist areas.
Just exude a little confidence. Handle the durian. Feel the spikes. Smell it. The durian seller will probably respect you more and will give you a better fruit. Durians with fungus spots or mold on the shell will taste watery and — you guessed it — moldy.
Durians picked under ripe may not ripen properly and can have no flavor at all, or a an unpleasant undertone that tastes like metallic scrambled eggs.
It can be smelled from yards away. A small minority, though, love the smell and taste of the fruit. Now, in a new study in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry , a group of scientists from the German Research Center for Food Chemistry has attempted to figure out how exactly the fruit produces such a powerful stench.
Durian, called the "king of fruits," is a tree fruit primarily found across large swaths of Asia. There are around 30 individual species of Durio , and hundreds of varieties in just Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Not all types of durian are edible, but of the fruits that are, they largely share common characteristics like thorny exterior rinds that range from green to pale brown.
They look a bit like much smaller jackfruit, but differ in that they generally max out between 5 and 7 pounds. Unlike the texture of jackfruit — which can resemble pulled pork — pale white or orangey durian flesh is downright creamy; imagine reshaping a stick of room temperature butter by cupping it within the palms of your hands. The taste continues along this motif.
Its high sugar content even means that vintners are able to turn the flesh into wine.
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