Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

It’s in season now. The durian. Also known as King of fruits…and Poisoned fruit, and Stinky fruit. Even in South East Asia where it’s grown, it’s divisive. It’s banned on the Singapore Mass Transit system. A taxi driver in Penang times his holidays so that he won’t have to transport passengers who are carrying durian.

You love it, or you hate it. If you hate it, it’s probably because of the smell, detectable from yards away. How to describe it? Pungent, maybe. Rotting meat, perhaps. Or as food writer Richard Sterling suggested ‘turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock’. A group of American kids faced with the fruit were apparently not impressed*:
‘It looks like something that happened when dinosaurs were around’, ‘It tastes like mango. But bad’ and ‘It makes me want my nose to not exist’.

Even my word processor keeps trying to replace ‘durian’ with ‘drain’ (how does it know?)

But. There are a number of people, particularly in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, who love it. Even the smell. Instead of (or as well as?) rotting meat and old socks, they detect pineapple, vanilla, almond. Traveller Alfred Russell Wallace wrote as long ago as 1869 that durian was ‘a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience’. He praised its rich taste and smooth custardy texture, subtle flavour with notes of almond, sherry, cream cheese. ‘It is in itself perfect’ he maintained,’and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop’.

Extreme fans call themselves ‘durianarians’, eating as much durian as they can and exploring fruit farms on ‘durian trails’, progressing from lighter, delicate varieties to richer denser fruits. The fruits of certain trees known for their superb crop are sold in advance of the season.

Tempted to give it a try? You can eat durian raw, in biscuits and cakes, in ice-creams, in sweets. We’ve seen menus featuring durian salad, durian panna cotta, durian cheesecake. I have a recipe, which may remain untried, for bacon and durian cupcakes (not sure who, in a Muslim country, devised that one)

And what, you may ask, about the Meanderers? have we tried it? Well first of all, we err on the side of the ‘yuck’ brigade when it comes to the aroma. As for taste – well, the durian cheese cake was OK-ish, durian ice cream ditto. One Bite Durian Puffs were edible, durian chocolates an experience not to be repeated (by us, at any rate). So no, I don’t think we count as fans. But for those whose culinary tastes are made of sterner stuff – well, it’s the season. Enjoy!

Postscript: By the way, durian is used in traditional medicine as anti-fever medication and an aphrodisiac. Thought you’d like to know.

*You Tube video by user React, Kids vs Food hashtag 16