Durian, And Other Odd Fruits

Durian is infamous in this part of the world.  Well known for its unpleasant odor, I’ve heard tell that certain hotels in Asia have signs banning the fruit from their premises.  So of course we had to try it.

It’s hard to open, so the ladies at the market cut it up and put it in a bag for us.  The inside just looks like yellow smush.  They offered us a taste right there as they opened it.  The fruit itself has an odd texture, like a smushy banana, and tastes kind of like onions with a hint of caramel.  It’s odd.  And while the smell isn’t offensive right off the bat, I can certainly understand why a hotel wouldn’t want durian hanging around.  The pungent smell becomes more off-putting with time, and after a few hours of having our bag of durian sitting a few feet away from me, I found it to be downright nauseating.  John didn’t find it as offensive, and gladly consumed the fruit to keep the smell away from me.  I left the durian to him, and turned to the other fruits we picked up from this morning’s market trip.

These are mangosteen.  Inside they are white and segmented like an orange.  The red part is bitter and hard, but the white segments are juicy.  At once sweet and tart, mangosteen are far more palatable than durian.I’ve already mentioned the snake fruit, which is named for it’s paper thin, reptilian feeling skin.  Segmented and firm like cloves of garlic, it tastes almost like kiwi strawberry candy.And of course, we know these guys from Nicaragua.  We called them hairy berries back then, but they are actually lychees.  The ones here are just slightly different.

The insides still look like eyeballs to me.Jackfruit, which we saw growing in Nicaragua but never tasted, is hard and green with small spikes on the outside.  The inside looks somewhat like pineapple.  We tried some fried jackfruit, and it just had a mild fruit flavor.
There’s also coconut, pineapple, dragon fruit, papaya, mangoes, several types of bananas…your basic smorgasbord of tropical fruit.  With flavors like these, its no surprise we have a fresh fruit smoothie nearly every day.

Not with durian, though.  I refuse to have any more durian in the house.  Ick.