His Majesty, King Durian.

[Bakkabon]

My watch showed it was 5 minutes to noon.I grabbed my note book and rushed out of my classroom, shouting over my shoulder to my students,"Be sure to finish all of your homework for tomorrow's class!"

I fairly leapt down the three flights of stairs through a narrow laneway and out of the university's side gate.

As I had hoped, the noon tram was just trundling round the corner. It slowed for the stop and I jumped aboard. My goal was two stops further along where, with careful timing, I could dash into what we teachers called the Dog Steak Shop just ahead of the clerks pouring out of the palace gate eager for there lunch too.

I spied my friend Sompot Upa-in, who is a lecturer at Bangkok's Silpakorn University, waving frantically for me to get off the tram.I stood and staggered to the rear steps and did a balletic leap for the kerb. Sompot caught me. " Whats up?" I gasped as he pulled me up from the gutter.

Just at that moment, I noticed a distinct odour all over that road, one of pungent vegtable decay, and I saw what looked like stacks of medievil maces heaped up along the kerb and piled up in front of shops. Some were oblong like rugby balls, others were round like soccer balls and about the same size, but all had great sharp spikes on them, like lumps of pointy iron meant to crush helmeted skulls in chivalrous combat.

I didn't attrbute the smell to the appearence. Bangkok is a city full of smells, some enticing, some distinctly off-putting. This was one of those nose-searing acrid stinks.

Sompot helped me scrape up my notebooks and pulled me out of danger of the tram's shiny steel wheels. "Don't get yourself Killed just yet," he said. "You have a new and wonderful experience waiting for you."

He tugged my shoulder and I stood shakily."Go in there," he ordered.

On both sides of the entrance to the narrow air-conditioned food shop he was dragging me into were more of those Knights-in-armour maces, only light brown and mixed with green instead of rusting iron lumps."What are these?" I spluttered.

"Later, later," Sompot urged. "You have got a wonderful treat coming. Sit down and order a drink--I suggest water, plain cold water."

He dissapeared out the door and through the shop window. I watched him lifting, testing one of the unfriendly looking vegtables, gingerly turning it as if for weight. The shopkeeper then pressed a dangerously sharp-looking scalpel into it and ripped out a strip of thick hide, exposing a bright yellow inside. My friend paid and came back into the shop. He handed the pointy lump to a waiter and sat down.

"Water, plain water," he called.

"You still haven't told me what that is, that pointy thing," I said. " And what happened to the drains around here? Everything has a new stink, not like yesterday's." Could it be that the Chao Phraya River had backed up the sewers?

Sompot laughed. "Those are Durians. They've just arrived from the country."

"Durians!" I'd heard the name uttered in awe by a foreigner whose nose crinkled even as he spat out the word.

Many visitors to Thailand have read of the evil stench of the Durian, and how dangerous the fruit can be if it drops off its tree onto your windscreen . . . or your head. In Malaysia they often stretch rope nets under the trees to catch the falling fruit before it clobbers some luckless soul.

It even has a reputation as an aphrodisiac, but it is reputed to be dangerous if a heavy drinker guzzels liquor while eating it.

as one Malay chap put it, "A shot of hard liquor after a Durian feast is apt to stop you in your tracks!" Here then is a fruit with a reputation.

The shopkeeper came back with a platter and two plates, and with clever surgical artistry he plunged his knife into the tough hide, twisted it and broke the fruit into two pieces. In either half nesteled two bright yellow blobs, like dinosaur eggs, perhaps in a snug nest.

Sompot watched me. "Now, dig one out ... with your fingers. Like this, scoop it out and eat it slowly. Enjoy the flavour and the texture. Ah ..." He breathed deeply. "This is a good one. It's called MON THONG, the :golden pillow:. It's one of the best. Use your thumb, dig it out and eat it. Slowly, like I said. Savour it."

That very day commenced my love affair with the king of fruit, the smelly, mace-like durian. In contrast to durian's out-ward appearance, the flesh inside was soft and custardy. As I pried up a blob, my fingers sank into it. I held it under my nose. "It doesn't stink!"

The flesh fairly melted in my mouth. "I've never tasted anything like this. What's that taste?" I muttered through my mouthful.

I'd heard someone say it's like something dead and decaying. But it seemed more like a happy symphony of bananas, caramel,vanilla and garlic or onion spread.

Sompot was less analytical. "Most people just eat it, lick there fingers and dig back for more."

"I do like it ," I cried with enthusiasm as I plunged in to gourge out yet another piece. "Easy there! If you eat too much you'll end up suffering from a case of RON NAI."

"Heartburn," I translated, flinging caution to the wind.

Later I learned that the durian, Durio zibethinus, is a member of the Bombacaceae family of trees that include the Kapok, the fat trunked African baobab and the South American balsa tree. This native plant of Southeast Asia is cultivated mostly in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, where, with carefull selection from chance seedling, they produce several varieties of edible {delicious} fruit.

Most come ripe in a six-week period from early May through June. The result is great stacks, a veritable Himalaya of durians. Exportation is made difficult by the urgency of sending the durians to Hong Kong , Taiwan and Malaysia. Durian is also exported to Australia, North America and Europe. Some dedicated enthusiasts may be willing to pay up to $50 for off-season durian.

First-class hotels in Bangkok ban guests from bringing them in. This is also true of airlines. They fear the problem of the aroma getting into the air-conditioning!

As Sompot pointed out, the durian may produce heartburn. I found that to be true after , in my enthusiasm, I had wolfed down a whole ripe durian after only an hour-long sitting.

I don't know how many durians I've eaten in the decades since my introduction to the king of fruit. Maybe hundreds. But I do know I've never selected one. I've always let someone more knowledgeable pick it out for me, or the vendor chooses one.

For another thing , if I lived alone on an island where there were kilometres of durian orchards, I would starve to death. I cannot for the life of me find out how to open these things.

but where there's a will, there's a way. If the vendor doesn't open it for me, and im not eating in a restaurant where the waiter can perform the necessary surgery, then maybe I will flag down a taxi driver. I will make it worth his while, I will, to get at my favourite fruit, His Majesty, King Durian.......

[Pescator]

quote:

---

Originally posted by thalenoi:

Bakkabon,

 

Trying to find what else thai food turned me off? Don't remember the thai name, was thin noodle sea-whatever salad. I do love very spicy som tam, but this was burning all the way and some of the seafruits(?) in there were, well kindly said "not tasty"

My GF, sitting one evening outdoors, returned from shopping, opened a bag and said "open your mouth" Strange dry stuff melted in my mouth. Did not like it and could not identify what it could be. "Young butterfly" she said. Noooo thanks. No bugs for me please.

---

The glass noodle salad you describe would probably be the Yam Thale. Sure is spicy stuff.

Thailand sure has a wide array of bug specialities.

What about the Maeng Dta, the big rice water bug. It looks like something right out of a star wars movie. The other meanings of Maeng dtaa which is horse shoe crab and pimp resp. doesnt exactly add to its attractions.

Or the Maeng Kii Dtao, literally the insect that smells like turtle shit, which is also an expression used for bad smelling arm pits.

That sure makes you wanna give it a try, doesnt it? :-)

Sometimes it can be an advantage not knowing what you actually eat, especially if you wanna keep it in your stomach.

[Guest]

Hi

Fascinating stuff -- I only know the reputation but I tend to quite unadventurous as far as food and toilets are concerned

So, does the celebrated aroma disappear after the fruit is opened? Does one still have to brave the aroma while eating the flesh? Or do you get desensitized??? And, is it bad etiquette to eat durian with your nostrils stuffed with your day old socks?

Ciao!

micsnee

[thalenoi]

Bakkabon,

I am affraid not everyone will share your love for Durians. I am adventurous when food is concerned. But durians felt of my list. I even gave durian icecream a try! Tasted rotten rubber icecream to me.

Trying to find what else thai food turned me off? Don't remember the thai name, was thin noodle sea-whatever salad. I do love very spicy som tam, but this was burning all the way and some of the seafruits(?) in there were, well kindly said "not tasty"

My GF, sitting one evening outdoors, returned from shopping, opened a bag and said "open your mouth" Strange dry stuff melted in my mouth. Did not like it and could not identify what it could be. "Young butterfly" she said. Noooo thanks. No bugs for me please.

[Guest]

When my first bargirl took me out to her apartment in way outskirts of Bangkok, we were looking for some local food. While the locals were getting a big kick out of me being in their neighborhood, my bargirl asked me if I wanted to try "this" which she pointed to on a table. I said yeah alright. We bought it for 30 baht and headed for a taxi. Wow did this thing start to smell! It was already a hot and humid day and the fruit reacted. She said put in fridge immediately I got home and eat it cold. I got home and stuck it right under the freezer in the tray at the NANA hotel. It froze and the next morning took one quarter of it and started eating. Delicious. Could not eat too much at one time so every other day I attacked a quarter. I was finishing off the last quarter walking outside the Nana hotel past the beer bar attached to the Nana hotel parking lot and the bar girls pointed at me in admiration at the farang walking the streets eating durian. I felt like one of the natives. I always say "when in Rome..."

Mykal

[Guest]

Bakabon, this article was written ages ago ( 5 to 10 years) you wrote it?

[Guest]

Uh-oh!

Now that chummum has questioned the age of the original article --

What is this "tram" that Bakkabon mentions?

Is it a streetcar (trolley?)? Is there a streetcar/trolley/tram in Bangkok? Or was there ever one?

If there is a streetcar/trolley/tram still running in Bangkok or elsewhere in LOS, I would like to ride one more than having a try on the exotic foul fruit. (Maybe this will prompt Khun Sanuk to revert this topoic to General Discussion )

Ciao!

micsnee

edited for one correction

[ September 15, 2001: Message edited by: micsnee ]