DURIAN

Durian is a fruit, which is held in very high regard in South East Asia, where it is known as "The King of Fruits". The Durian is also a nickname bestowed on the Esplanade concert halls in Singapore.

According to Alexander Hamilton (Scottish Sea Captain 1689-1723) "The Durian is an excellent fruit, but offensive to some people's noses, for it smells very like human excrements, but when once tasted, the smell vanishes. The skin is thick and yellow, and within is a pulp like cream in colour and consistence, but more delicious in taste. The pulp or meat is very hot and nourishing, and instead of surfeiting, they fortify the stomach, and are a great incentive to wantonness."

Many people who are not from South East Asia find the odour of durian to be too repugnant, for them to ever try eating some. In many of the South East Asian countries you will see signs which forbid people from taking durians into hotels, lifts, taxis and other forms of public transport.

A young durian has a tough green outer prickly skin. As the durian ages the skin will turn to either a yellow or brown colour. On some durian varieties the outer spikes are wide and not long, while on others they are long and sharp.

The first durian I tried was the Thai variety known as Morn Tong (this translates to Golden Pillow in English). The Morn Tong is a good variety for the novice durian taster to start with. It is the most fleshy of all the durian varieties and has the mildest taste. The flesh is soft and the taste much more pleasant than the smell would suggest. The flesh of the Morn Tong tends to be paler than that of other durian varieties.

A slightly stronger tasting and less fleshy Thai variety of durian is Chanee.

Durian varieties from Malaysia and Indonesia tend to be much stronger tasting than the Thai ones. So rather as a western person may start to appreciate a relatively bland cheese such as Dutch Edam or English mild Cheddar, but later progress on to the more flavoursome Chaumes, Munster, Gorgonzola etc., so also durian eaters can progress from the mild Thai varieties to stronger Malay ones. The most widely available Malay durian seems to be the D24. After consuming these, it can take several thorough hand washing attempts, to eliminate the durian smell. Of course once you are a durian lover, you won't particularly want to remove the smell.

There are stories that eating durian and drinking alcohol together can be lethal. Some of my friends and I have experimented eating D24 while drinking Tiger beer in Singapore. We noticed no ill effects. At that point some local people told us that durian is only lethal when eaten while drinking spirits. So when visiting Bangkok we tried eating Morn Tong while also drinking Mekong Thai whisky. Again we suffered no noticeable side effects. This could be due to us eating the mildest of durian with a not particularly strong spirit. If we ever get to try D24 with Polish 180 proof vodka and survive, I will post the results here.

Update on Friday 13th October 2006 - not an auspicious day to try this crazy experiment, but try it we did. After drinking 3 pints of beer each, my friend Bill and I decided to take the experiment to the next level. We purchased some pungent Malay durian from a roadside vendor. We couldn't determine exactly which variety it was, but it was fleshy (not as fleshy as Thai Morn Tong though), strong smelling and the most expensive of several varieties on offer.

We returned to Bill's apartment, where the strongest spirit he had in his collection was Dewars Whisky (40%) alcohol. We then ate 3 generously sized segments of ripe creamy durian each (a segment being the flesh surrounding one seed / stone), and chased each one down with a shot glass full of whisky. After the durian was finished we had another 2 shot glasses of whisky each. After that we went out to some bars and drank more than one more jug of beer each.

It is now 2:30pm on Saturday 14th October 2006. I am still alive, but feeling a little fragile. I guess that I would feel about the same even if we had not eaten the durian. It is rare for me to drink spirits. I have received an SMS from Bill, confirming that he too is still alive.