11/3/2013 - First Official Durian Experience

I have a vivid memory of sitting on a bench in the Wisconsin Business School about ten years ago, reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about a fruit I had never heard of before.  I can still envision the little black and white dot matrix photo that the Journal was so well known for, this time not of a titan of industry, but of a spiky fruit that looked like it should be on the end of a medieval weapon.  The article was on the front page and spilled into the middle of the newspaper, discussing the varying prices, types, where to get it, etc.  Of course it centered around a tiny island nation in Southeast Asia that I knew next to nothing about, but lo and behold, 10 years later, here we are.

The signs for durian in Singapore are everywhere.  Not trying to sell it, but saying don't bring it in here. Instead of no smoking signs, the hotels have no durian signs with the circle and a line drawn through it.  Same on the MRT, same on airplanes.  The reason, of course, is the smell is simply overpowering.  You get a wide range of descriptions from people, but my favorite and what I consider to be most accurate, is a pair of used gym socks that have been hidden in the locker room for a few weeks.  The taste of course, is supposed to be way better than the smell, but why anyone would have tried something that smells like that in the first place is beyond me.

A few months ago, one of the $1 ice cream vendors had gotten a smear of durian ice cream on my chocolate ice cream and the taste of that was more than enough to make me wary of ever trying it before we moved home. However, recently visitors from the US were here and were bound and determined to have this distinctly Southeast Asian experience.  Given I had first read about them in the Wall Street Journal, it was fitting that a work outing had us split into two taxis, close to midnight, hoping the durian stalls on Balestier Road were still open.  If nothing else, our taxi drivers had a good laugh about what we were trying to accomplish.

We were in luck, I guess, and within a few seconds the hawker had taken his machete and cracked the fruit open.  The point of no return crossed, I gingerly reached out and grabbed a piece the size of a mandarin orange.  The smell wasn't as strong as some of the other times we had caught a whiff and trying to forget about the ice cream I had previously had, down the hatch it went.  The final verdict, a cross between a sweet onion and garlic with the consistency of a ripe avocado.  I had one more bite and decided I didn't need to smell like this for the next 48 hours and stopped.  On the way home, our taxi driver was nice enough to not make any comments, but others had them roll down the windows and I think we could all still taste it the following afternoon.  Until the next batch of tourists rolls through town......