durian

seriously, i've heard that it has a very rich, creamy taste.

Durian Durian!

*buries face in hands*

*shakes head*

*goes to wash brain out*

I've had durian pastries, though -- like mung bean cakes, but with durian puree (sweetened, I think, but I'm not sure) in the middle. There's definitely a smell you don't taste, if you see what I mean, and it becomes very noticeable if you're in a car and don't roll the window down.

I have a friend who loves durian stuff, but come to think of it I'm not positive even she's had the fruit by itself.

The fruit qua fruit is worth seeking out for its unique creamy texture, but I don't pass judgment on people who don't like it.

Apparently there's a popular Indonesian brand of durian-scented condoms. I can't think of anything funny to say about that.

I used to work with a man who loved durian. He claimed that he once stunk out a Singapore hotel because he took a durian back to the room with him, and the odor got into the ventilation system.

do they have SPIKES as well like a real durian?

I used to work with a man who loved durian. He claimed that he once stunk out a Singapore hotel because he took a durian back to the room with him, and the odor got into the ventilation system.

this phenomenon is well known throughout singapore hotels - i'm not sure how true it is but most hotels ban their guests from bringing durians for that very reason. (although it sounds more like an urban myth than anything)

Indonesian ticklers.

balut picture.

When I was in Borneo, a guide told me Orang-utans can smell a ripe durian 25 miles off..

also, you gotta eat it fresh. and never mix it with alcohol cos it can make you go blind (old wives' tale).

i dont think durians smell bad at all.

My friend Pat gets them on occasion and it's true that there's a vast difference between the fresh and frozen. The easiest way to spot a fresh durian is the price: $40 per, as opposed to the $10 or so for a frozen one.

as in:

customs officer: god, that parcel stinks! what do you have in there, a corpse? raw sewage?
durian guy: no, i have durians.

i imagine that the "customs barriers" really = bribes to let in the stinky asian fruit.

Creamy, didn't smell too bad, umm that's it.

Actually what I really want is durian cheesecake. I'll have to see if I can find another.

Meanwhile I have mailed some seeds to my friend in Georgia and urged him to grow a durian tree in the farthest part of his property.

ouch.

Jaca mole (soft durian) is gooey and yummy, but very much an acquired taste. It's also very ugly - like a quarry of pizza cheese. Brazilians tend to go for the jaca dura (hard durian), which you can buy in chunks on the street in Northeastern Brazil.

The smell is a bit like a heady mix of floor polish and sperm. But don't for a moment let that put you off.

I have a request in for another one and will try not to disappoint my fans this time if it comes through.

Delicious.

I just ate it raw.

So did it live up/down to its reputation?

I second the margarita suggestion, just because it seems like you really can't go wrong with the combo of tequila + fruit + potability.

But I'd also be curious what it tastes like at different temperatures, since that's such a big factor in fruit taste; room-temp vs cold-in-ice-cream vs hot-in-pie, etc. (I'm not suggesting durian pie, it was the first example of hot fruit to come to mind. Durian jubilee? Durian foster?)

That just sounds wrong.

Durian Foster would be very good. The starchy/creamy texture, especially of the fresh one, makes it a nonobvious beverage ingredient candidate to my mind. It really lends itself to dairyish desserts, like the panna cotta and custards I've made, and the ubiquitous ice cream.

I've just been told that when I go to Malaysia with work this August, our hosts will play a durian trick on me and I must grin and swallow for the sake of all concerned. This is not in my job description!

bah durian's not that bad. i had a durian shake once. it really does smell not amazing, but the taste is alright. i wouldn't order it agian, not becuase i didn't like it, but because i like other things way more. maybe if i felt like posturing or something.

"oh yeah... i'll take DURIAN. oh, i know what it is. I LIKE it. you know? i've TASTED it before and it's SO good. even though it smells BAD. hey wanna go on a date? it doesn't make your BREATH smell bad I PROMISE."

imagine all of the capitalised words are other enunciated in the most irritating way, with that "i am way too cool for school" lilt to them.

I had a bite of freshly made durian ice cream last night. The smell was really strong, but the taste wasn't bad. You could fight back by bringing some epoisses or limberger or Stinking Bishop.

I had dried durian earlier in the year and it was edible.

(Haha, this conversation is being had by ILCers on two boards now)

why did i sound so weirdly formal upthread?

heh madchen it's not that terrible, just order a sweet drink to wash it down with. or wot Jaq said.

were you drunk? at a certain level of drunk i get more formal. after that it's all downhill though, stream of consciousness + random capslock etc

hah i might have been. I don't think i get more formal though when drunk though, usually i go straight for the all-caps.

I just tried some durian jam that Jaq sent me a few weeks ago. The smell was actually not overwhelming -- somewhere between pineapple and roadkill. The taste is lingering unpleasantly in the back of my throat, but it's not the worst taste ever. It would take cash money to get me to eat more.

I had a durian bubble tea drink at a vietnamese joint. I didn't care for it that much, I could get the subtle sweetness, but the aftertaste was horrible. And it made me burp a lot, which only brought back up the bad part of durian.

does anyone watch "bizarre foods with andrew zimmern"? he completely balks at the durian, he might have even spit it out, which was amazing after all the other mad shit he eats quite happily

I just tried some durian jam that Jaq sent me a few weeks ago. The smell was actually not overwhelming -- somewhere between pineapple and roadkill. The taste is lingering unpleasantly in the back of my throat, but it's not the worst taste ever. It would take cash money to get me to eat more.

-- Rock Hardy, Friday, 22 June 2007 23:32 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

hahahaha!

I still think you should take it with you to Amsterdam for the other assembled ILXors to try out :)

It is tempting. I'm just afraid of the jar breaking in my luggage.

somewhere between pineapple and roadkill

This scares me more than I can say!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQj-hFfmYkQ

Are these anything like jackfruit? They look kind of like them. I love jackfruit but you can't get a good one in this hemisphere.

they're related to them. i had a decent jackfruit from toronto chinatown not too long ago sundar!

Jackfruit don't smell bad though.

they can smell pretty intense when they're ripe. not durian-level but

<3 durian. took a local bus from the mekong delta back to saigon and the ladies (vn tourists, maybe from hanoi?) in front of me had packed both their huge bags full of them, upon boarding within minutes the whole bus was filled with the aroma of fresh durian.

one of the reasons i call bullshit on zimmern is because of his inability to stomach durian, which is pretty mild compared to a lot of other gnarly foods imo. weak.

according to wikipedia, different types of durian have different smells (or the smell for some types is stronger than other). so it's possible, then, that durians grown in vietnam don't smell as bad as those in malaysia or singapore?!? i dunno, i've never even seen one much less smelled one.

I actually was on my way back from KL and Singapore on that particular leg, not to say that durian smell all that different. It's a pretty distinct odor.

Do you have an asian market near you? I know there are durian "chips" (dried fruit) available in the US that are the real deal and could satisfy your curiosity. Package looks like this:

http://www.papawow.com/storage/IMG_1706.JPG

Ha, I guess jackfruit does have a pretty distinct smell. It just occurred to me to think of it as bad. I'm weird though.

I brought durian ice cream by mistake in Indonesia once. It was foul, tasted a bit of onions. It was a horrible disappointment, as we'd been biking round this island for hours and were majorly excited when we saw the ice cream man coming down the road.

lol invoking zimmern

Durian smells like death and tastes like evil.

i wanna try it but i keep forgetting. i wonder if my asian store potung trading co. has them.

"It just never occurred to me..."

you can definitely find durian in the US but it's usually been frozen for the overseas transport, hence not as good

sometimes I think aversion to durian may be a genetic thing - I don't mind it, like it, but I know people who will literally gag and puke if they eat it/are exposed to it

for a recent lesson I had my students present on how to improve a commonly used product. one group chose condoms and said they should offer them in more flavors, one of which was durian. I lol'd silently.

definiely the best tasting fruit ever. you should try it at least once.

Durian is great. It's a fruit that tastes like french onion soup!

i don't think french onion soup tastes good so maybe i should not try it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75vm9ik5pjo

you can definitely find durian in the US but it's usually been frozen for the overseas transport, hence not as good

i think you're wrong here. i've eaten them fresh as can be but i'd probably rather eat a barely thawed one from a vancouver supermarket. it's almost like durian ice cream and totally not stinky at all. really, really good. (i am eating one right now).

I went to karaoke with my friend's Chinese coworkers at her manager's house. All the songs were received politely until this one song, where everyone in the room was fucking cracking up hardcore. My friend & I didn't know what was going on, because the song was in Chinese. One of her coworkers, in in explanation punctuated by laughter, "The song is comparing...woman...to a durian!"

i'm kind of imagining all kinds of things wr2 that comparison ... probably not nice towards women. and politeness prevents me from elaborating ... o_O

I ate one recently & it was not too bad. I was really curious to eat it bcz I can't smell, so I'm not getting stank interference. When I purchased it, the guy at the counter asked if I ever had one. I said no, and he told me, "You won't like it. You only like it the second time."

Is this also true of women?

sometimes ... (wr2 women)

I paid a lawyer for some phone advice last week with a whole durian. He wanted to try one. It didn't stink through the shell, but I got nailed by its spikes as I was carrying it out of the market.

I had some more durian desert the other day. durian + chocolate syrup + whipped cream is pretty good, but so is durian by itself tbh.

there were a couple of durian virgins there too who also tried a little - they were all overpowered. I wonder if it's a genetic thing.

i'm really surprised that durians are so widely available in different parts of the USA. again, maybe it's NYC-area chauvinism (and i haven't actively sought them out over here). but given the facts that these fruits are (a) ethnic (East Asians) and (b) stinky, i didn't think that they'd have much distribution potential in America outside of the East Asian communities.

I bought my durian...in Idaho!

I bought a durian "cake" which looked very much like these ones (thank you google image search):
http://img.alibaba.com/photo/11524505/Durian_Cake.jpg

Sort of a sausage of mashed durian, sugar and preservatives, I guess. It didn't smell of much but the taste was pretty disgusting - even between 4 people we barely managed to eat a quarter of it. How does this compare to the real thing?

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013/09/06/Durians-cause-a-stink.aspx