It's an Acquired Taste...That I'll Never Acquire

"It tastes like the best tasting thing you can think of, vanilla ice cream, or chocolate cake, in the toilet." This was how Sara described the fruit that is distinctly Malaysian...the stinky durian. "My grandmother used to buy a huge four-foot bin of these, and we'd eat every single one over the weekend!"

We stopped by a roadside market on our way out of Melaka where the specialty were Thai coconuts, durians and many other fruits I've never seen before. Red spiky dragon fruits, and cat eye fruits, which are like big grapes you peel back to reveal white flesh with a big pit inside.

Sara picked out a perfectly ripe durian, the size of a large coconut, with its spiky outer husk pricking her fingers. and watched the Chinese vendor chop it open to reveal two kidney-shaped yellow sacks. "The really ripe ones, the best, have this bright yellow!" said Sara, as she ripped a piece of the slightly gelatinous flesh out with her hand. Go ahead, have some! I couldn't bring myself to grab it, it was slightly spongy and looked, well, not good.

I gingerly poked at the yellow flesh with a spoon and held a bite up to my mouth...the smell was horrible. I took a bite. Ghastly! It was the texture, sort of like okra, and the flavor, strong, sweet, yet sickening.

She laughed and grabbed another handful and pushed it into her mouth. Checker too, eagerly grabbed a hunk, chowing down. Sony and I were unable to eat any more, and the taste lingered in my mouth for a long while. It's hard to describe anything I've ever eaten that I disliked more.

I guess this is an acquired taste but I am pretty sure I'll never eat another bite of Malaysia's favorite fruit. "It's like if we ate bleu cheese," said an Malaysian Indian we met later. Now I know what he means.

Watch Out For Falling Stinky Fruit

In the Meleka Palace Hotel in Kuching there was a sign above the elevator, warning that 'no durian fruits were allowed on the premises.' I read the local paper today to discover a photo of a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, holding one of these famously stinky, spiky fruits. Durian, I was told by a Malaysian woman, is the symbolic food here, beloved by nearly everyone.

The Straits Times story told of the problem in the jungle--there are so many durians falling out of the trees that they risk being bonked on the head by this King of Fruits, which fall from between 40 and 80 meters high. It's a bumper crop, pounding down on their unsuspecting heads, so helmets are required when anywhere near the durian orchard.

The trees yield bumper crops like this every five years or so, and each giant spiky stinky one goes for about 5 ringet per kilo.

In other local news, the state oil company, Petronas has boosted its yearly payment to the government to a health 6 billion ringet, after windfall profits due to high oil and gas prices. Now you know why the people are protesting prices, since they could have just lowered the prices instead.