a tribute to the king of fruit!

A durian poem from the internet:

"All hail great Durian, in whose spiny breast / A thousand wonderous flavours have their birth / All hail to thee! We wanderers from the West / Here crown thee King of all fruits of earth! " - H S Whiteside from "Gula Melaka" Christmas, 1914

durian. the king of fruit or menace to society...you decide! (using the following websites and internet quotes as a starting point for your decision).

i've had durian ice cream from china town and liked it - it was kind of cheesy and fruity but it had no smell, so i'm hesitant to try the real thing. the following links are worth a visit, they have durian poetry, music, cartoons, scientific facts, theories on the evolution of the odour... lots of things worth knowing. (by the way, the 1st pic is of the durian tree. so tall! good thing the fruit fall mostly at night!)

www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~durian/

http://durian.timtyler.org/

"Durian, the infamous tropical fruit, banned in hotels and public transportation because of its foul odor, but craved by many who have become accustomed to it. "Like eating custard in a sewer." I have tried the fresh fruit twice, first in Bali in 1988, then in Paris in 1992. I have also purchased durian ice cream from Polly Ann's in San Francisco. I brought it to a party once. Everyone thought there was a gas leak in the stove!"

"I have been told by a number of people that beer can be fatal, if drunk within a few hours of eating durian. This is apparently on account of some fermentation process, which causes your bowels to explode. However, based on my own experiments, this rumor appears to be totally untrue. WARNING : Not everyone has the same metabolism, so I take no responsibility if you try it and achieve a different result."

"The taste is unique. Custard, almonds, and perhaps a hint of garlic. Or perhaps banana, papaya, vanilla, and - rotting onions"

"Durian blooms nocturnally beginning in the late evening and peaking at midnight"

"I put the durian—which was sealed securely in a plastic bag—in the car while I did some other shopping. Returning less than an hour later, a strong, pungent odor filled the whole car. I rolled down all the windows and drove around for an hour—the car still smelled. I took the durian home, hermetically sealed it in three layers of plastic bags, and went out again. After another hour I returned, opened the door, and immediately confronted the same strong smell. It’s a vaguely fruity smell, in the way that apples rotting in a manure pile smell vaguely fruity. It’s hard to say quite what it smells like, but it isn’t likely to become an air freshener or cologne scent. And the scent is very tenacious—plastic won’t stop it, it sticks to everything, and it dissipates very, very slowly."

“The Durian is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walking or working under the trees. When a Durian strikes a man in its fall, it produces a dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely ensues, the copious effusion of blood preventing the inflammation which might otherwise take place" Excerpt from The Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russel Wallace. Dover Publishing Inc., Pp 56-58 (written during the 1850's-60's)!

"Aficionados of the fruit say they find the smell irresistible, but its detractors have struggled to find an apt simile. It has been likened to rotting onions, unwashed socks and even carrion in custard, but the most accurate description by far is that of a sewer full of rotting pineapples. This malodorous fruit is so offensive to many people that the durian is banned on buses, trains, taxis and aeroplanes, and all hotel-doormen will bar entry to anyone trying to smuggle one into their establishment."

"Eating a good durian is such a satisfying experience, blissful. As Mark Twain declared the cherimoya "deliciousness itself," I say the durian is "blissfulness itself!" I think it perhaps not coincidental that so many of the buddha statues in Southeast Asia have been created with the head covered with points that very much resemble a durian. (And I say that knowing full well that in some countries the creation of those statues pre-dated the durian’s arrival.) Eating a good durian can be a spiritual experience, giving quite literally an exquisite taste of bliss."

I say enjoy the king of fruits next time you get the chance
IF YOU DARE!