Food Challenge: Durian!
Last Updated on Sunday, 16 May 2010 18:56 Written by Elise Monday, 17 May 2010 00:00
Durian Adventure
On Sunday a group of food adventurers gathered To try Durian "The King of Fruits". I was fairly nervous about this. Given all I had read, I was really not sure what to expect.....So let's get into it...
The first thing you will notice is that this fruit is not kidding around. The outer husk is indeed a spikey ball of death. It's heavy and those quills are SHARP (note the mesh bag to tote it around). In its whole form there is a distinctive smell to the durian...I wouldn't say it was particularly offensive, more a sharp and a little astringent.
Interestingly enough though the husk is not hard, like a coconut, it was actually opened fairly easily with a sharp knife.
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We all waited for a horrid smell to to smack us in the face once we had cut into the durian. But that didn't really happen. You sort of had to stick your nose in there to get a good whiff. The opinions how how it smelled varied a bit. I though it definitely had a mild "trash" smell. But again, nothing you would run screaming from, more like a "I should take the trash out tomorrow" smell.
That said, look at it! It looks more like some kind of mollusk than fruit. Or some sort of alien young....
We scooped out the soft custrady insides and got ready to dig in. The most shocking thing about my first bite was how sweet it was. I think based on what I had heard about it I was expecting something more savory. Maybe even something that tasted more like brie cheese. But no, really it tasted more like honeydew melon than anything else at first...after a few seconds a bit of an oniony taste would hit you...so really the best description (and one most of us there agreed with) is honeydew melon stored next to onions. Another thing we noticed was that different parts had a little different flavor. Closer to the pit you got more of the onion aftertaste. Further away, more of an aftertaste of almonds.
A bit about the texture. This is perhaps the hardest thing to describe. It both custardy and smushy, and pulpy and fibrous. To eat it most of us sort of scraped some of the soft fruit from all the stringy pulp. Those brown seeds you see on the plate below were in the center of each section of fruit flesh. Apparently they are very starchy and when boiled resemble potatoes. We didn't do that though.
I wouldn't say I loved it (it was almost too sweet), or hated it (it wasn't that offensive). It certainly was an experience.
Many thanks to The Red Menace for procuring the eats and supplying some amazing snacks!
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Comments
it was a wonderful chance to visit this kind of site and I am happy to know. thank you so much for giving us a chance to have this opportunity!
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