I tried Durian.

Laughing at all the comments here LOL

Speaking as someone who grew up watching my parents eating this stuff….I can take it or leave it. Actually don’t hate the smell. But the fact that it has taken almost decades for it to get into the conversation in this country is amazing to me.

There are so many more hidden gems in the fruit world that you guys should try, that I know are better and more popular but Durian…gets all the attention because of the polarising taste and visual.
 
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£94 is excessive just to try durian, you can buy it in a lot of Asian supermarkets for about £20 for a small box of it, even that is expensive
 
Try it fresh off the tree, tastes a bit different to the market. Less gaseous and putrid, but still absolutely rank. We (wife and I) have a couple of trees on our land. The first time I tried it I was physically sick. I persevered and tried it a couple more times and decided if you don't love it the first time you never will.
 
94 quid! Bloody hell!

Tried it when I was living in HK, didn't mind it at all, but wouldn't go out of my way to eat it.

The smell will always remind me of the supermarkets and wet markets though

Dragonfruit is my missus' favourite fruit. Costs an arm and a leg here and are pretty small and sad compared to what you get in Asia though.
 
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aVdub said:
I can recommend @Angilion you try Surströmming next, which some say has a slight odour.
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Already in play:

Angilion said:
[..]
My coworker has some surstromming on order for the next "how bad can it be?" food tasting session.
[..]
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It'll be a while though and I'm not sure I'm up for trying it. For some reason, foul-smelling meat seems worse to me than foul-smelling fruit.

panthro said:
Try it fresh off the tree, tastes a bit different to the market. Less gaseous and putrid, but still absolutely rank. [..]
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I probably would, but that would cost me a lot more than £94 as I'd have to go on holiday to somewhere it grows. I'd rather spend the money on some new hardware, which will be more entertaining for me. I'm getting the upgraditis itch again. I'd have to temporarily remove my graphics card (or my CPU cooler, but that would obviously be more fuss) to make enough space to get my fingers in to fit a new SSD in the primary M.2 slot on my motherboard, so it's the right time to buy another new graphics card. Perfectly good reason, not a flimsy excuse at all :)
 
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Aha I did miss that you added that.

I was going to do one at work, but coming from H&S and having more moaners than the national average, we decided to leave it.
 
Durian is quite nice, despite the smell, although I find that more than a small serving is too much.

Angilion said:
My coworker has some surstromming on order for the next "how bad can it be?" food tasting session.
Click to expand...

Honestly, it's really not that bad. It has a very strong taste, and it repeats somewhat unpleasantly, but I think if you took it and put it into an actual dish it'd add an interesting dimension and be really quite delicious.
 
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Durian is definitely an acquired taste.

I lived in Malaysia for 8 years in the naughties, tried it quite early on and was disgusted by the smell and taste, similar to many comments here.

They have fresh durian in most supermarkets so escaping the smell is impossible. Then after about 3 years of exposure , something clicked. “I quite like that smell now, I’m going to buy some” I said to the mrs. And you know what? I absolutely loved it.

I’d get cravings for it and have to go hunt it down in markets and road-side stalls.

9pm on a Friday night I'd get an urge and go out driving until I find what I wanted, and end up spending the equivalent of £20-30 on a fruit.

Madness. I wouldn’t do that on a bottle of wine.
 
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I tried durian when I was in singapore a few years back and it most certainly wasn't for me. It repeated on me terribly for hours and my burps smelt like the gas you use to cook with!
A Malaysian woman we know loves it though and said that sometimes it can taste like ice cream, which just says to me that she eats truly awful ice cream.
 
After Durian, we tried Stinking Bishop and surstromming. Well, actually we didn't. The cheese arrived while my coworker was away and it stank out a fridge so badly that it had to be binned. The cheese, not the fridge. That had to be scrubbed. Nobody was willing to try eating the surstromming, not even me. It smelled worse than the durian.

Anyone got any ideas for our "why eat that?" series? Food or drink. Free range civet faeces coffee is next on the list. I'll order that tonight.
 
Angilion said:
After Durian, we tried Stinking Bishop and surstromming. Well, actually we didn't. The cheese arrived while my coworker was away and it stank out a fridge so badly that it had to be binned. The cheese, not the fridge. That had to be scrubbed. Nobody was willing to try eating the surstromming, not even me. It smelled worse than the durian.

Anyone got any ideas for our "why eat that?" series? Food or drink. Free range civet faeces coffee is next on the list. I'll order that tonight.
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Shame about the stinking bishop, tastes fantastic. I'd highly recommend Balut if you really want to put someone off. I worked in the Philippines for some time, and I think the was the only thing I couldn't actually stomach trying.
 
Angilion said:
After Durian, we tried Stinking Bishop and surstromming. Well, actually we didn't. The cheese arrived while my coworker was away and it stank out a fridge so badly that it had to be binned. The cheese, not the fridge. That had to be scrubbed. Nobody was willing to try eating the surstromming, not even me. It smelled worse than the durian.

Anyone got any ideas for our "why eat that?" series? Food or drink. Free range civet faeces coffee is next on the list. I'll order that tonight.
Click to expand...

Not going to be much of a series if no one is going to eat the stuff!!!
 
I have had "fresh" durian in Thailand where you buy it in the markets precut and in a polystyrene container and it was not bad at all. As said above, it was nice enough but give me mango, pineapple, rambutan, dragon fruit or mangosteens any day of the week. We also bought dried durian and durian sweets which were all ok. Don't believe I have smelt the fruit in it's skin but maybe it blended in with the smells around the street markets
 
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