A Love Letter to a Smelly Fruit

When my friend Bob Halliday thinks about durians, the tropical fruit that some say smells like garbage, he not only salivates with delighted anticipation, but he also “foams like a geyser.” Those were the words he used on the eve of our visit to an orchard north of Bangkok that was filled with these green spiky fruits dangling dangerously from towering trees.

I confess to the same passion with what must be the world’s smelliest fruit.

What is it about the durian? Shaped like a rugby ball with large thorns that can pierce even the most callused hands, durian stinks so badly that it’s banned from airplanes, hotels and mass transit in most Southeast Asian cities. In a part of the world where rules are constantly bent and broken, carrying a durian into confined spaces is not taken lightly, punishable by scowls or eviction.

Yet aficionados like Bob and me will travel terrible distances, cancel important appointments — do anything — to scarf down globs of custardy flesh from a durian. While many Thais like their durians harvested early so the interior is still hard and can be neatly handled, I like an over-ripened durian, which has the consistency of cottage cheese. It’s a very messy affair.

It goes without saying that durian is a polarizing and controversial fruit. (I take pleasure in typing that sentence because there is probably no other time you can combine “controversial” and “fruit.”)

There is a long tradition of durian haters who cannot get past the smell and gooey-ness of durian, especially among Western visitors to Southeast Asia. Simon de La Loubère, a French diplomat who came here in the 17th century and wrote with unusual empathy about the Kingdom of Siam, drew the line at durian, describing it as “unbearable” because of its smell.

But as a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades who has always sought to write fairly and dispassionately, I dispense with objectivity for a moment and attempt an ode to what the Malaysians rightly call the king of fruits.

Yes, I freely admit that when ripe it can smell like a dead animal. Yes, the fruit is difficult to handle, bearing likeness to a medieval weapon. But get down to the pale yellow, creamy flesh, and you’ll experience overtones of hazelnut, apricot, caramelized banana and egg custard. That’s my attempt at describing durian. But words fail; there is no other fruit like it. Bob compares it to the works of Olivier Messiaen, the 20th-century French composer: complex, dissonant, but with an overall impression of sweetness.

The first time I tasted durian was when I was posted in Kuala Lumpur 15 years ago. Trucks piled high with the fruit would come in from the Malaysian countryside, and I would spend evenings sitting with friends on plastic stools by the roadside sampling different varieties. Unlike the Thais, who cut durians down from trees, Malaysians usually wait for them to fall. The result is a much riper and stronger-tasting durian, sometimes slightly fermented. Durian farmers in Malaysia have been known to wear helmets: No one wants to be on the receiving end of a five-pound spike-bomb. Malaysians also believe that durian is an aphrodisiac. When the durians fall, the sarongs go up, goes a Malaysian saying.

We live in a time when chemists and cooks have joined hands to concoct foods of unrivaled complexity in everything from packaged snack food to wallet-crushing meals at Michelin-starred restaurants.

What I love about durians is that there is no laboratory needed to achieve the depth and range of tastes they offer. It’s one of nature’s masterpieces, dangling tantalizingly in the jungle. Durians, even those harvested from the same branch, can be so nuanced and dissimilar that tasting them is something akin to sampling fine wine.

Bob, one of the foremost experts on the food of Thailand who has written restaurant reviews there for decades, said that durian reminds him of crème brûlée. “It tastes like something that was prepared in a kitchen, not grown on a tree,” he said after sampling a particularly delightful durian.

Durian season starts in May and tapers off around November in Thailand, depending on the latitude. But these days orchard owners have managed to coax the fruit from trees year round. They are prized by the Thai elite, who offer gan yao durians, a delectable variety with a long stem, as gifts to business partners or senior government officials. (Yes, a durian bribe.) One fruit can easily sell for $50.

Durians also grow in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. In Malaysia the season extends until around the end of the year.

Bob and I recently traveled to three places around Bangkok to sample durian: a high-end Bangkok fruit market; roadside stalls in Chinatown, where durian lovers can get their fix year round until the wee hours of the steamy Bangkok night; and the durian orchard outside Bangkok, cherished by durian groupies for its more than two dozen varieties and 300 trees.

“You can Google ‘durian’ and learn a lot,” said Chartree Sowanatrakul, the owner of the orchard. “But when you come here you will go beyond Google.”

Our quest was to try as many varieties as we could, especially those that are becoming increasingly hard to find with the homogenization of Thai fruit. (Like the production of greenhouse tomatoes in the West, Thailand specializes in breeding fruit for beauty and ease of transport, robbing fruit lovers of variety.)

Chartree’s six-acre orchard is a two-hour drive from Bangkok in the foothills of the Khorat Plateau, which extends into northeastern Thailand. He served us freshly harvested durian, pineapple and mangosteen, a small round purple fruit with sweet white flesh that many people believe is the perfect complement to durian. The orchard has an unusual genesis. Chartree’s father planted the trees from durian pits he collected in the trash bins of wealthy Bangkok residents in the 1940s, making it a sort of seed bank of varieties that are no longer in commercial production. We were treated to a wonderful variety that Chartree has named nom sot (fresh milk). Other types in the orchard include gop (frog), chanee (a type of monkey) and la ong fa (a Thai sweet).

“Old people come here and say the durians here taste just like the durians they had when they were young,” Chartree said.

I confess to the same passion with what must be the world’s smelliest fruit.

What is it about the durian? Shaped like a rugby ball with large thorns that can pierce even the most callused hands, durian stinks so badly that it’s banned from airplanes, hotels and mass transit in most Southeast Asian cities. In a part of the world where rules are constantly bent and broken, carrying a durian into confined spaces is not taken lightly, punishable by scowls or eviction.

Yet aficionados like Bob and me will travel terrible distances, cancel important appointments — do anything — to scarf down globs of custardy flesh from a durian. While many Thais like their durians harvested early so the interior is still hard and can be neatly handled, I like an over-ripened durian, which has the consistency of cottage cheese. It’s a very messy affair.

It goes without saying that durian is a polarizing and controversial fruit. (I take pleasure in typing that sentence because there is probably no other time you can combine “controversial” and “fruit.”)

There is a long tradition of durian haters who cannot get past the smell and gooey-ness of durian, especially among Western visitors to Southeast Asia. Simon de La Loubère, a French diplomat who came here in the 17th century and wrote with unusual empathy about the Kingdom of Siam, drew the line at durian, describing it as “unbearable” because of its smell.

But as a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades who has always sought to write fairly and dispassionately, I dispense with objectivity for a moment and attempt an ode to what the Malaysians rightly call the king of fruits.

Yes, I freely admit that when ripe it can smell like a dead animal. Yes, the fruit is difficult to handle, bearing likeness to a medieval weapon. But get down to the pale yellow, creamy flesh, and you’ll experience overtones of hazelnut, apricot, caramelized banana and egg custard. That’s my attempt at describing durian. But words fail; there is no other fruit like it. Bob compares it to the works of Olivier Messiaen, the 20th-century French composer: complex, dissonant, but with an overall impression of sweetness.

The first time I tasted durian was when I was posted in Kuala Lumpur 15 years ago. Trucks piled high with the fruit would come in from the Malaysian countryside, and I would spend evenings sitting with friends on plastic stools by the roadside sampling different varieties. Unlike the Thais, who cut durians down from trees, Malaysians usually wait for them to fall. The result is a much riper and stronger-tasting durian, sometimes slightly fermented. Durian farmers in Malaysia have been known to wear helmets: No one wants to be on the receiving end of a five-pound spike-bomb. Malaysians also believe that durian is an aphrodisiac. When the durians fall, the sarongs go up, goes a Malaysian saying.

We live in a time when chemists and cooks have joined hands to concoct foods of unrivaled complexity in everything from packaged snack food to wallet-crushing meals at Michelin-starred restaurants.

What I love about durians is that there is no laboratory needed to achieve the depth and range of tastes they offer. It’s one of nature’s masterpieces, dangling tantalizingly in the jungle. Durians, even those harvested from the same branch, can be so nuanced and dissimilar that tasting them is something akin to sampling fine wine.

Bob, one of the foremost experts on the food of Thailand who has written restaurant reviews there for decades, said that durian reminds him of crème brûlée. “It tastes like something that was prepared in a kitchen, not grown on a tree,” he said after sampling a particularly delightful durian.

Durian season starts in May and tapers off around November in Thailand, depending on the latitude. But these days orchard owners have managed to coax the fruit from trees year round. They are prized by the Thai elite, who offer gan yao durians, a delectable variety with a long stem, as gifts to business partners or senior government officials. (Yes, a durian bribe.) One fruit can easily sell for $50.

Durians also grow in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. In Malaysia the season extends until around the end of the year.

Bob and I recently traveled to three places around Bangkok to sample durian: a high-end Bangkok fruit market; roadside stalls in Chinatown, where durian lovers can get their fix year round until the wee hours of the steamy Bangkok night; and the durian orchard outside Bangkok, cherished by durian groupies for its more than two dozen varieties and 300 trees.

“You can Google ‘durian’ and learn a lot,” said Chartree Sowanatrakul, the owner of the orchard. “But when you come here you will go beyond Google.”

Our quest was to try as many varieties as we could, especially those that are becoming increasingly hard to find with the homogenization of Thai fruit. (Like the production of greenhouse tomatoes in the West, Thailand specializes in breeding fruit for beauty and ease of transport, robbing fruit lovers of variety.)

Chartree’s six-acre orchard is a two-hour drive from Bangkok in the foothills of the Khorat Plateau, which extends into northeastern Thailand. He served us freshly harvested durian, pineapple and mangosteen, a small round purple fruit with sweet white flesh that many people believe is the perfect complement to durian. The orchard has an unusual genesis. Chartree’s father planted the trees from durian pits he collected in the trash bins of wealthy Bangkok residents in the 1940s, making it a sort of seed bank of varieties that are no longer in commercial production. We were treated to a wonderful variety that Chartree has named nom sot (fresh milk). Other types in the orchard include gop (frog), chanee (a type of monkey) and la ong fa (a Thai sweet).

“Old people come here and say the durians here taste just like the durians they had when they were young,” Chartree said.

Durian is a very social fruit, usually eaten among friends. But I confess that I have sometimes eaten durian alone. Like eating birthday cake by yourself or drinking a tall boy out of a paper bag in a public park, it feels somewhat sad and illicit. Which brings up another point. As any durian fan will tell you, durian and alcohol don’t mix.

With every durian season come stories about people who have collapsed — or worse — when they’ve had large quantities of durian and alcohol. I have never read or heard of a scientific explanation for this, if there is one. But it is widely recognized that durian season can be deleterious to your health. A few years ago, after a routine physical checkup, I was told by my doctor that my triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, were above normal. She gave me a pamphlet in which the first piece of advice was to cut down on durian or avoid it altogether.

But many of my fellow durian-loving friends are getting along in age, and it reassures me that, well, they are still alive. There are, after all, much more dangerous foods to consume than durian. Blowfish comes to mind.

After a recent and particularly indulgent durian-eating marathon, when we felt like rolling away instead of walking, Bob quoted William Blake. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

Durian is a very social fruit, usually eaten among friends. But I confess that I have sometimes eaten durian alone. Like eating birthday cake by yourself or drinking a tall boy out of a paper bag in a public park, it feels somewhat sad and illicit. Which brings up another point. As any durian fan will tell you, durian and alcohol don’t mix.

With every durian season come stories about people who have collapsed — or worse — when they’ve had large quantities of durian and alcohol. I have never read or heard of a scientific explanation for this, if there is one. But it is widely recognized that durian season can be deleterious to your health. A few years ago, after a routine physical checkup, I was told by my doctor that my triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, were above normal. She gave me a pamphlet in which the first piece of advice was to cut down on durian or avoid it altogether.

But many of my fellow durian-loving friends are getting along in age, and it reassures me that, well, they are still alive. There are, after all, much more dangerous foods to consume than durian. Blowfish comes to mind.

After a recent and particularly indulgent durian-eating marathon, when we felt like rolling away instead of walking, Bob quoted William Blake. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”READ MORE