Durian

Durio zibethinus (Java, duren). No other fruit arouses so much curiosity and even nervousness among westerners in South-East Asia, and I must say that Indonesians, too, have a special regard for durian. It is a big fruit, to start with, not as big as the nangka, which it slightly resembles, but about the shape and size of an over-inflated rugby football, set all over with pyramidal spines that give it, with its khaki-green colouring, the look of something that might go off at any moment. It grows on high trees, anything up to 30 metres tall, and when ripe it lets go and comes crashing to the ground. With luck, the impact of its fall splits the outer casing lengthwise in four places, and you have only to apply firm downward pressure to split the whole fruit wide open. A convenient place to do this is the floor of a car or truck, and you will see drivers using the right foot for the brake and the throttle and the left for opening a durian as they speed along. What makes the durian so famous, or notorious, is the combination of its taste and its smell. Most Europeans say that the smell is nauseating but the taste, if you can nerve yourself, exquisite and indescribable. I think this is too simple. The flavour is indeed difficult to describe in English; this is partly because the flavour of each individual fruit changes rapidly as it matures, and partly because, since almost every tree is grown from seed, every tree has its own characteristic flavour. The durian is indeed exceptionally complex in its make-up of chemical substances, and these interact rapidly in what must be a perfect hell’s kitchen in the ripe flesh. The smell of durian I do not find disgusting, and nor do European friends of mine who have become accustomed to it, but it does become a tiresome smell if you have too much of it. You could take a nangka as an inside passenger on a Javanese country bus, and no one would object; if you took a basket of durian, you might be asked to put them on the roof-rack (where, of course, there would be more passengers, but also more fresh air). Smell or no smell, Burkill records that the kings of Burma organized relays of runners to bring durian post-haste to the palace at Ava, which was too far north for the tree to grow. Malay tribesmen, more fortunately placed, set up camp at a respectful distance from any promising-looking tree they chanced upon in the jungle, and waited for the fruit to thud to earth. In my opinion, durian should be eaten when the flesh is still firm but not too hard. Yellowish fruit taste better than the pale white ones. In West Sumatra, we make a most beautiful Sambal Durian from overripe fruit and crushed chillis. Many people would say that durian should be kept, like cheese, until it is beginning to rot. As it matures, this formidable fruit ferments and produces alcohol, so that it is possible to become mildly drunk on it. Really hard cases keep it until it has become maggoty. Burkill says that connoisseurs will not touch it once the flavour of garlic has become pronounced. I have never noticed any hint of garlic in a durian, but it may be in there somewhere. Don’t throw the seeds away; they taste nice when they are boiled, or you could even grow your own durian tree.