So I had my first taste of the dreaded Durian this weekend--a spiky fruit with a pungent smell that many Westerners consider a tad vomitous--and have to say it wasn't that bad. A little soggy but basically you're eating the pulpy covering of giant seeds that grow inside this hanging fruit.
The taste hints of fermented citrus and threatens putrefaction but if you can eat oysters you can probably eat Durian. Not the taste but the texture; it's the texture that really gets people with Durian. And the fruit definitely stinks: A heavy plant funk that reasonable people might say smells pretty well on the way to rotten. But get over that and you're in the clear. The fruit's decent and apparently I didn't even have great Durian. Too much rain. Drier Durian is tastier and, I'm told, has higher natural alcohol content. Not sure I'll be sitting down with a cold glass of Durian juice anytime soon to watch some badminton on TV, but nice to know a natural booze buzz can be had in a land where even bad beer like Bintang is almost $1.75 a can (warm) at the grocery store.
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