In defense of durians

[Bob Norton]

I really must take issue with this. The Durian is the food of the gods. It is so enormously popular among its afficiandos that over 50 varieties have been bred. Unfortunately, here in New Mexico, one must settle for one particular Thai variety that freezes and ships well. Fresh is definitely better. Its flavor and aroma are enormously complex and are seldom described similarly by any two people. 

You can be caned in Singapore for chewing gum so the fact that one may not carry a durian on a public conveyance or open one (they aren't sliced, they're pulled open) there is hardly surprising.

In the better Vietnamese restaurants in the Seattle area, one can get durian shakes and malts. Any round-eye ordering one gets the STRANGEST looks from the staff (then they hide and watch you.) Old Chinese women come up to me when they see me carrying one to the checkout and tell me how much they love durian but that their husbands won't let them bring one in the house.

There is also durian candy available. Not quite as complex but easily as strange to most as anything in Mrs. Quod's jar.

Then again, I once ate Monkey stew and enjoyed it.


> the durian, a spiked,
>football-shaped fruit popular in Southeast Asia that is so famously stinky
>that Singapore, for one, prohibits slicing them open in public places." 
>The oft-and-arguably-unfairly maligned durian has the dubious distinction
>of being the only non-animal product in the article to be cited as
>revolting.