- Home
- Angry by Choice
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Chinleana
- Doc Madhattan
- Games with Words
- Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
- History of Geology
- Moss Plants and More
- Pleiotropy
- Plektix
- RRResearch
- Skeptic Wonder
- The Culture of Chemistry
- The Curious Wavefunction
- The Phytophactor
- The View from a Microbiologist
- Variety of Life
Field of Science
-
-
From Valley Forge to the Lab: Parallels between Washington's Maneuvers and Drug Development3 weeks ago in The Curious Wavefunction
-
Political pollsters are pretending they know what's happening. They don't.3 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
-
-
Course Corrections5 months ago in Angry by Choice
-
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Catalogue of Organisms
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Variety of Life
-
Does mathematics carry human biases?4 years ago in PLEKTIX
-
-
-
-
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China5 years ago in Chinleana
-
Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM6 years ago in Field Notes
-
Bryophyte Herbarium Survey7 years ago in Moss Plants and More
-
Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV8 years ago in Rule of 6ix
-
WE MOVED!8 years ago in Games with Words
-
-
-
-
post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!9 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
-
Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez9 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
-
Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens10 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
-
-
-
The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl12 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
-
-
Lab Rat Moving House13 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
-
Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs13 years ago in Disease Prone
-
-
Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby13 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
-
in The Biology Files
A plant pundit comments on plants, the foibles and fun of academic life, and other things of interest.
Durian - Love it or leave it?
Experienced travelers in SE Asia would know what this sign means. No Durian! It would be displayed right outside your hotel along with similar no smoking, no pets, no solicitations, etc. The only thing remotely close to this was seen in a classy motel in far upstate New York that had a sign in the bathroom that said: No Fish Cleaning In The Bathtub. This is the only fruit TPP has known to ever be banned from buildings. It's true, when ripe this hard, spiny rugby-sized fruit can smell something like an open sewer. It isn't pleasant. Yet in Thailand this fruit is a much beloved and favorite food that fetches a considerable price when of high quality. Westerners usually have a very negative reaction like the weird food guy (Andrew Zimmeren) gagging on durian. We laughed because it takes a lot to make that guy gag, but his reaction seemed extreme based on our experiences. What you actually eat is a creamy colored, custardy textured aril that surrounds the seeds inside this very protective fruit. The first record by a westerner of durian comes from no less than Darwin's younger counterpart, Alfred Russel Wallace, "To eat
durian is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience." Now to be fair, he didn't say he liked it, although he did say it was worth the trip in a day and age when it took months, and it would be a new sensation. Far from the love it or leave it extremes, there is a broad middle ground where TPP resides. Both Phactors have had durian on more than one occasion, and our reaction is similar, it's nothing vile, nothing special; we ate enough to be polite. Thai acquaintences snarfed up the rest. It's rich, sort of creamy or soft cheesy in texture and taste, but rather bland, no tartness or normal friutiness at all. We can't figure out the big deal Thai make of it, nor can we understand the negative reaction of so many people. Durian ice cream is OK, the sweetening helps. Only once in the continental USA have we found durian (frozen) for sale (Jungle Jim's, Cincinnati, Ohio); who knows how that is, but it was too expensive for a trial. So for what it's worth, durian has been ticked off our bucket list. If you've given it a try, tell us what you think. Report on any other exotic plant foods too.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sorry - I'm trying to reconcile the fact that the ripe fruit smells like an open sewer but when eaten doesn't have much of a taste.
You mention you eat the aril - is the stinky portion confined to the rind and/or seeds? (Leaving the bland flesh when cleaned.) Or is it that it's eaten when slightly under ripe, and it's only if you leave it too long does it become stinky?
In terms of smell-taste durian is rather like some ripe cheeses that smell much worse than they taste. The fruits don't smell unless they have split open exposing the aril covered seeds, and odor is associated with maturity in fruits in general. You'll just have to try one.
I've had durian and found my experience to mirror yours pretty closely. It was reminiscent of a rich, vanilla and passion fruit custard that had been infused with burnt onions and farts. But my understanding is that there are many varieties of durian and some are more potent than others.
How very colorfully accurate! Yes, all manner of varieties exist and it's entirely possible my Thai hosts chose a "mild" one for their foreign guests.
Post a Comment