Durian Fruit Review

I have an acquaintance at work that doesn’t eat veggies, ever. My wife doesn’t eat bananas or tomatoes. My kids now also don’t eat tomatoes. I have tons of friends that don’t eat fish of any kind. Another friend goes nuts if they put green peppers on his hot Italian sandwich. This entire attitude of “ I don’t eat this” or “I never touch” that is something I just can’t comprehend and quite frankly, makes me want to stab people in the eye. Going out to eat and listening to people go on and on for an hour with special orders trying to make a lasagna taste like mashed potatoes and gravy is insanity. I guess, in their narrow view, mashed potatoes and gravy are the only tasty treats on the planet. Sure, they are absolutely delicious and go with almost any meal, but open your mind people. I can’t imagine that I will ever change your habits, because that is ALL they are, but if nothing else, at least recognize that the pickier you are, the more certain you will be to never actually enjoy a meal. You are also ten times more likely to be labeled a whiney be-otch by friends and acquaintances.

I imagine that most people’s food proclivities are spurred from them tasting a bad peanut when they were 8 years old and their lives being forever changed. Never again will a peanut cross their plate without a 10 min. tirade about how awful peanuts are and how they can’t believe anyone would consume such a vile thing. If I based the rest of my life on every bad experience I had at the age of 8, never again would I shower at my grandmas house (long story) nor would I ever again break into an abandon house with a cousin….and that just isn’t living.

In an effort to keep and open mind and actually experience things in this life, stretch out from my white trash roots, and expand my horizon…I eat everything. I will pretty much down anything you put on my plate. This takes a little mental fortitude when traveling overseas, but it has allowed me try some really interesting foods, most of which were fantastic. Singapore has a diverse mix of cuisine and has introduced me to the likes of frog porridge, fish head curry (special attention to the monster eyeball), chicken feet, raw baby octopus, and Rojak which is basically brown gravy on pineapple, bananas, and croutons. We didn’t find a place that served scorpion last time I was there, but I plan to find one next time I visit. Delicious. Trust me, if you can flip that switch in your brain to try things you normally consider disgusting, you will enjoy your sex life…I mean, your dining experience, way more. Your idea of gross is just based on conditioning. The idea of eating pork to a Muslim is just as offensive as your thoughts on eating maggots. Recognize your mental weakness and overcome my brothers.

I mention all of this to lead into my review of Durian fruit. One of my dining adventures in Singapore led to a fruit stand where a couple of friends took me to try an Asian delicacy. If you are unfamiliar with this delight, it looks like a spiny melon that is super dense and could likely be used as a medieval weapon of destruction. You have to score the thick skin of the fruit with a knife and then crack open this beast to find delectable pods inside. Each seed is approximately 1 to 2 inches in diameter and is surrounded by a meaty flesh. This flesh is the part that you eat. These seeds are encapsulated in a fibrous material that is inedible but offers a hearty aroma to enhance your dining experience. Determined to try anything, I scooped up one of these meaty pods and took a bite. Wow, how to describe what I experienced? Let me break it down.

Smell: Durian is by far the stinkiest fruit on the planet. It is literally banned in every mass transit system in Singapore and is not allowed in malls, hotels, stores, and most public places. Yeah, the ban of this fruit is actually posted on signs throughout the city. You can smell the fruit stands that sale it from about half a mile away. If you didn’t know what you were smelling, you would think it was the dead meat wagon from the 1800s. It smells like death.

Texture: The pods have the texture of raw liver with a slimy scum coating the outside. Apparently this can vary as my friends said that sometimes it can be way slimier with substantially more smoosh.

Taste: Never in my life have I put something so foul in my gullet. My body instantly tried to reject this as I did everything I could to man through this pod and hold back the gag reflex. It tasted like rotten flesh and gasoline. Yes, gasoline…but a kind of creamy gasoline. This is not food. After I finished my first seed, my friends said I did better than most but I looked very green. They gave me a pass to stop at this point.

Sound: If you have seen any of the Dawn of the Dead type movies, you know the sound. It is the squishy, slurpy sound zombies make when burying their face deep in to the midsection of a bloated victim.

Feel: Felt like I was holding the still beating heart of a Pigmy. I swear the thing actually twitched in my hand.

I will try anything, and did my best to experience this with an open mind. I got down almost one entire seed pod before conceding. I repeat, this is not food. This is not something that may not be your favorite item but you can still politely finish to appease your host. This is not something that is really just a product of mental weakness or conditioning. Durian is an abomination before God and man and should be extinguished from this earth with great prejudice. Your body rejects poison instinctively to preserve life, Durian is one of those poisons and shouldn’t be ignored. As someone that despises whiners and the mentally weak, I can honestly say that if you can eat this filth, you are a better man than I.

If I could give less than zero stars, I would.