Thorny experience

Hooked on the durian, for better or for worse

Columnist William Citrin waxes lyrical of his love for the King of Fruits and encourages expats to take a big bite.

LIKE Justin Bieber, motor-sports and leather pants, durian is something you either love or hate. The mere mention of the name of this polarising fruit — not to mention its smell and taste — has the capacity to unleash paroxysms of pleasure or disgust. But one thing both lovers and haters can agree on: durian has power, undeniable power.

Unlike beer, jazz and monogamy, durian is not an acquired taste. Most people, it seems, don’t have the “durian gene” and are predisposed to detest it; their senses reflexively rebel against the smell of the King of Fruits upon first encounter.

These legions — and 97% of expats, I think, fall into this category — loathe the pungent produce with fanatical zeal, pursuing a campaign of utter segregation by banning durian from most buildings and enclosed public spaces.

One time at a hotel in Kota Kinabalu, for example, the manager and two security guards knocked on my door late at night in search of the forbidden fruit— apparently its pong had seeped into the centralised air-con system and offended one of the guest’s olfactory glands.

I suspect that most of these haters are unfairly judging durian by its spiky cover and, of course, its off-putting stench, and have never actually ingested it.

With durian and me, it was love at first bite. I will always remember the first time its creamy, dreamy flesh touched my lips. It was during my maiden voyage to Malaysia 10 years ago, and an assembled crowd of local friends watched me with great (and morbid) fascination — as if I were a monkey strapped into a rocket ship being blasted into outer space — to see if I would simultaneously combust upon consumption.

They were shocked to see me gleefully sucking the meat of the fruit from its seeds. It was finger-lickin’ good (and durian literally sticks to your fingers), its taste complex and indescribable (although Anthony Bordain famously described it as being like “French kissing your dead grandmother”) and unforgettable (mainly because it lingered on my fingers and breath for days). It was unlike anything that had ever entered my mouth before (and you can’t even imagine what has been in my mouth) and I knew, from that first encounter, that I was hooked – or, in this case, spiked.

Durian is not just a food, it is an experience. Like lovers and crabs (but not lovers with crabs), each and every durian possesses a unique personality which can only be discovered by breaking through the hard exterior to reveal the pods of flavour within (although the Borneo pygmy elephant eats durian by rolling the fruit in mud and then swallowing it, spikes and all, whole). Each and every durian begins as a mystery and ends as a memory. Speaking of mysteries, I once had the idea to write a series of books entitled Death by Durian, each about a murder with durian as the weapon of choice.

In one book, the head of the victim is impaled by the lethal spikes of a falling fruit as she walks through a durian orchard at night. As any Malaysian will tell you, durian has “eyes” and will never fall from a tree onto a living thing. Who, then, fatally dropped the durian onto the woman’s head?

In another story, a man dies after consuming excessive amounts of durian together with beer, causing his bowels to explode. Is this a tragic accident, or is it foul (fruit) play?

In another one, a large suitcase of durian is smuggled onto an airplane and opened mid-flight, precipitating a wave of panic and a stampede in which an elderly billionaire heiress is tragically trampled to death. Was she just in the wrong place at the wrong time or is something suspicious “afoot”? You get the drift… I also had an idea to concoct a durian cologne called “Spiky Spice” and a perfume called “Forbidding Fruit”. Not sure if these will repel or appeal to the general public.

Until one of these or one of my other durian-based business schemes comes to “fruition”, I will just be content to be an editor and a durian connoisseur, perpetually in search of the ultimate durian high.

I would encourage my fellow expats to plug their noses and partake. Durian may smell like hell, but it tastes like heaven.