After reading Virgil's entry about durians (
click here to read it), I decided to attempt the awesome feat of eating a durian.
You'd probably have a hard time finding these things at a regular American grocery store.
Fortunately, there is an Asian supermarket just a couple minutes down the road from where I work.
At first, I wasn't having any luck in my quest.
I couldn't find the jokers anywhere...until I decided to look in one of those freezer vats.
There they were, in all their spiky glory, beckoning me. Frozen Durian, $1.49/pound. I'm pretty sure there was some sort of spotlight shining down on them as I heard some angelic chorus singing.
My first instinct was to stick my nose against one and take a big whiff. It really wasn't that bad - sort of reminded me of a pineapple.
I can see why those who harvest these things have to wear hard hats when they work under the trees. This thing was a 5.5 pound deadly weapon.
OK, I'm buying it.
Time passes...I'm at home.
Still in the mesh bag:
Beside the first tool in the attempt to open it:
Since it was frozen, it was a little difficult to cut the husk with a knife.
I had to bring in the big guns:
After I managed to get a suitable gash, I decided to take another smell.
Still like mild pineapple...
I took a spoon to the section I cut to dig out the edible part of the fruit.
It has the consistency of custard or yogurt and surrounds a couple fairly large seeds
I took the spoon to the seeds this time. I hear they're pretty toxic, so I didn't want to try to eat them.
Here's a picture of one. They're not the prettiest.
After the 2 pits were removed, I had a custardy mess in my bowl.
Now the taste...
At first there is an extreme sweetness.
The sweetness is shortly followed by an aftertaste of onions.
It's kinda like eating onion flavored candy.
I also hear the freezing the fruit reduces the flovor and aroma. So I covered my bowl and stuck it in the refrigerator overnight to thaw.
This morning, I excitedly opened the bowl and stuck my nose in. What I heard was right. This thing was starting to get pungent. It didn't really
stink necessarily like we've all heard. It was more like an old cheesy pineapple with the slight odor of feet. Still bearable, nonetheless. It tasted the same as it did last night, but a little stronger.
I wish I could have gotten a picture of my daughter's face when she smelled it.
If you can get past the smell, it's really not bad. I still have the aftertaste of onions in my mouth though.
