Sarah and I finally got around to trying one of these stinky pieces of shit. There’s a reason these things have spikes on them.
During the last visit to our local Asian market we noticed they carried frozen Durian. I was kind of excited but we didn’t know about them and were skeptical of buying one. So after a few weeks and a little research we knew how to pick one out and felt comfortable taking it on.
This afternoon we made our trek to the market and I found a beauty in the open cooler instantly. It fit the description perfectly and was small enough at $1.79/lb. that I wouldn’t feel bad throwing it out if it ended up tasting like an asshole. A few sniffs at the exposed section of fruit was surprisingly pleasing and not overly shitty at the least.
“Maybe I could do this. It doesn’t smell that bad, kind of good actually”, I thought. Grabbing it by the netting I headed to the cashier. Thoughts of her looking at the “bok wai” with a durian raced through my head but she didn’t express any interest in what I was purchasing. After ringing out I got back to the car, gently placed it in the trunk and we headed home.
Thankfully today was beautiful. The past few weeks have been really cold and wet so the sunny 55 degree day was perfect outdoor durian weather. I grabbed a chef knife and got to hacking that bitch open on our deck. As I was cutting it the sun was beating down on the open flesh accelerating the funk. It was almost thawed out by the time I got it split in half. After convincing Sarah to let me bring it inside for some photos we got the forks and picked out our first bites.
Sarah decided to go first. She had been rushing me the whole time knowing that the fruit would only get stinkier the longer it sat out. We walked out to our deck and quickly ran through the vomit evacuation plan. She was standing near the ledge and would be able to just turn her head and barf. She took the first bite gracefully and remarked, “it’s really not that bad”. A wave of relief hit me as it was my turn.
I took the durian like I would an oyster, shot-style. It really wasn’t that bad. Kind of pleasant actually. Sarah went back for seconds and was chewing it like bubble gum. OK, I can do this.
I ran out to our deck and spit out not just the durian but every drop of moisture in my mouth. It was appalling. My dude JP said “it’s like somewhere between raw onion and vanilla pudding with a hint of skunk”. Right on the money.
Just because this experience wasn’t the best for me doesn’t mean I’m giving up on them. The same thing happened with the Big MacChicken, I fell and got back up. We called one of the bubble tea shops around our house to see if they had a durian flavor but they don’t. Maybe some durian pastries?
After all this I’m glad I did it and would really like to try one fresh.
