Man of Honour
I read about it and thought it was interesting and strange. The most memorable description I saw was that eating durian was like eating blancmange in a lavatory. I told a coworker, who also thought it was interesting and strange. So we bought one. £94 for 1 fruit is hardly good value for money, but with the idea in our heads we would have regretted not doing it. Took a while to arrive. Apparently they're only exported from Borneo and Indonesia.
The accounts of the smell are not exaggerated. There is a good reason why most places where durians are grown have local laws banning opening them in public places. It arrived with the fruit unopened, wrapped in a silvery packaging and inside a cardboard box. My coworker put it in a staff room. We had to go in a bit later and retrieve it because the smell made the staff room unusable. Nobody else would enter the room. And that was before we opened the box, let alone the fruit itself.
A while ago, I had the outlet from my toilet clog and decided to save money by dealing with it myself. So I opened the inspection hatch in my back yard...and was greeted by a mess of faeces that had been marinating in its own juices for days as the clog built up. If I had chopped up an apple and thrown it on top of the mess of rancid turds, that would have smelled just like the durian did.
I ate some of the durian anyway, because I'd have regretted not trying it. Everything about it was bad. The smell, the taste, the texture. We'd opened the fruit outdoors because of the smell, so I was able to spit the small mouthful out into a convenient bin.
I don't regret spending £50 on it. It was an experience. Not a good experience, but an experience none the less.
So hey, why not try durian? Maybe you'll like it. Some people think it tastes great. Maybe the one I tried had gone a bit off. There's no way to tell, as far as I know, because it smells like decaying sewage when it's fresh.
The accounts of the smell are not exaggerated. There is a good reason why most places where durians are grown have local laws banning opening them in public places. It arrived with the fruit unopened, wrapped in a silvery packaging and inside a cardboard box. My coworker put it in a staff room. We had to go in a bit later and retrieve it because the smell made the staff room unusable. Nobody else would enter the room. And that was before we opened the box, let alone the fruit itself.
A while ago, I had the outlet from my toilet clog and decided to save money by dealing with it myself. So I opened the inspection hatch in my back yard...and was greeted by a mess of faeces that had been marinating in its own juices for days as the clog built up. If I had chopped up an apple and thrown it on top of the mess of rancid turds, that would have smelled just like the durian did.
I ate some of the durian anyway, because I'd have regretted not trying it. Everything about it was bad. The smell, the taste, the texture. We'd opened the fruit outdoors because of the smell, so I was able to spit the small mouthful out into a convenient bin.
I don't regret spending £50 on it. It was an experience. Not a good experience, but an experience none the less.
So hey, why not try durian? Maybe you'll like it. Some people think it tastes great. Maybe the one I tried had gone a bit off. There's no way to tell, as far as I know, because it smells like decaying sewage when it's fresh.
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Got to give these things a go though