Love it or hate it, there’s no in between

By Aditha Dissanayake

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Khaki green in colour, oblong or round in shape and covered with sharp prickly thorns, holding a durian in your hand is surely akin to holding a medieval weapon - the kind used by worriers on horse back during the days of Chaucer. Open it and you’ll faint with lusty joy or faint with a handkerchief pressed to your nose.

Known as Durio Zebethinus to Botanists, what makes durians special in the kingdom of fruits is definitely the strong distinct odour which emits from the flesh surrounding the seed within.

The smell of custard mixed with rotting radishes, the odour of soiled socks or spoilt cheese? Yes, perhaps to the uninitiated, who wows that short of the threat of death there is nothing that will induce them to eat it.

At most road-side stalls these days the price of a durian varies from Rs. 150 to Rs. 300. Those that are plucked from the tree when it is relatively young are cheaper because the fruits within the shell are still forming and mild in both flavours and aroma. Those that are allowed to fall from the tree are believed to be more creamy, more pronounced in fragrance and therefore, high in price.

Flavour and aroma

Forbidden on aircraft as hand luggage, and forbidden inside many hotels in countries like Thailand, if you are a regular durian consumer, you will by now be having your own method of selecting the best fruits from a given pile. But if you are someone who has just discovered the delights of durian, here is advice worth heeding given by Sunil of Galatha.

Being the owner of a dozen durian trees, Sunil who has been selling his fruits to the vendors of the Gampola town for over thirty years says, generally the freshness of the fruit can be ascertained by the stalk. If the stalk is dry this means the fruit has been removed from the tree for far too long.

If you are in search of the fruit in which the pulp is dry and mature you should shake the fruit and listen for a slight rattling, in much the same way as you do when choosing coconuts. “It is important to avoid buying fruits with holes in them”, cautions Sunil. “This is a sign of insect infestation. The fruits are at times attacked by insects which lay eggs that soon become worm like larvae.”

To enjoy a durian, it has to be eaten almost immediately, once it’s opened.

A delay of two or three hours will cause the fruit to lose most of its flavour and become tasteless. Opening a durian is no easy task. The whole operation, to be completed successfully requires tools, techniques and experience. Here’s how you should go about it.

Before opening the fruit you should inspect the “lines”. i.e where the thorns grow in straight rows as opposed to the seemingly random distribution of the rest of the surface. Usually there are around five such lines on a durian. Now, turn the durian upside down and find the spot where the lines converge. Gently insert a sharp object into this point. i.e a knife or a screwdriver.

Then, slide this sharp object along one of the lines and separate the fruit into two parts. Wrap a rough cloth round your hand to avoid getting pricked by the spikes. Those who fear the “heaty” properties of durian are advised to accompany a feast of this king of fruits with a feast of mangosteen, incidentally called the queen of fruits, for mangosteen are said to have “cooling properties”.

Appalling though the smell might be, durian is also supposed to have the powers of an aphrodisiac, one though, which lasts only for four hours.

If you have stayed with me till now, you must surely be a connoisseur of durian. If you are not, it’s time you got to be one. Getting to know the durian is worth the ordeal of enduring its (heavenly) aroma. Trust me, its worth a try.