Anyway, yesterday I ate some of the mystical, mysterious fruit called Durian. "The King of Fruits". You may have seen one: about the size of a football, covered in spikes, usually in a net bag. You probably wondered WTF?, wandered close enough to maybe smell it, and backed away slowly with your nose wrinkled in distaste. I had always heard that Durian was one of those things that was a paradise buried deep within a hell, and had been curious about it.
My boss brought one in to work and we cracked it open in the back yard. The spiked shell is actually a multi-part pod, and inside each pod is a blob of stuff that kind of looks like an alien larva. The whole thing looks alien, truth be told. The pulp of the fruit is a creamy color with the consistency of a thick pudding, or maybe a partly roasted marshmallow. There are big seeds snuggled within. It's very weird stuff.
It tastes like a savory dish made with a not-very-sweet tropical fruit. It doesn't taste at all like fruit. It tastes pretty good, really, and I can see the appeal. It is very exotic, and my mouth knew it had never had anything like it before. Completely new.
However, there is a down side. The smell has been compared to rotting corpses. It smells like a pool of gasoline in a swamp. That is the taste left in your mouth and on your hands for hours after. My biggest surprise was when I peed and IT smelled like that. I had two sizable bites, okay? And all that happened. I stopped at two bites in case it made my lips swell up or anything, but some of my more Durian-experienced coworkers gorged themselves.
I love a new experience.
TASTE THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT
