The scene: I’m in the back parking lot of the Weekly office building participating in an operation that lies somewhere between a hazmat cleanup emergency and culinary Russian roulette. I’m throwing down with my first durian, the mondo crazy-smelling, hedgehog/torture instrument-looking Asian tropical fruit. The goal is not to throw up.
After reading about this complex seed-ferrying flesh, I am conflicted. Lovers say it tastes like some divine ambrosia with a funk that makes the eating even more ecstatic. Naysayers just focus on the pungent wafts that smell like something dead or seriously wrong.
I've even watched taste test badass Andrew Zimmern of Bizzare Foods on the Travel Channel wretch while unsuccessfully munching on some durian. This is serious stuff – this Zimmern guy will eat the face off of a roasted muskrat and follow it with deep fried scorpion or goose alimentary tract. And he can’t stomach the fruit.
I decided to test my gastronomic mettle.
An office buddy with a truly adventurous palate and an occasional jones for durian agreed to initiate me into the smelly fruit fraternity. 11:00 a.m. sharp, out back. Failure to show would land me labeled office-wide as a wuss.
Ten minutes before the event I imagine acrid smells inside the office -- a stress-based hallucination.
I recite in anticipation the strong food odors I can take and actually like -- stinky cheeses just short of Limburger; boiled cabbage. I mentioned a smell I don't really like too much -- the ethylene-ish, gassy smell of cantaloupes. The durian expert tells me I was going to get them all and more.
Outside on D-Day, the expert takes a plastic bowl out of his car and sets it on the trunk. He grabs a durian segment from inside.
It looks like an alien pod or some unspeakable horror out of H.P. Lovecraft. Or a tumor.
It smells like rotten foie gras with Fruit Stripe gum highlights. But it's not so bad, strong sure, but not so bad, I repeat. It's also breezy outside.
Expert takes a plastic fork and spears a chunk. It quickly shreds to two smaller hunks under the pale force of a picnic utensil.
To my eye the durian has the consistency of old pudding, spaghetti squash and baked phlegm.
I cram the durian in my mouth.
It has tastes of papaya, overripe banana, passion fruit and vanilla custard. Nice. But it's all wrapped up with an infusion of burnt onion skin and charred garlic. There are also undertones of kidney and liver.
Plus, there is also a hint of bug spray. A strange, vaporous sensation seems to expand in my mouth and throat and play the roll of a feather tickling my epiglottis.
I chew and swallow. I nearly yack but keep the durian inside.
It's a success.
Of the durian, after tasting, I rate it 80 percent good/interesting/adventurous and 20 percent absolutely revolting. But that's a pretty vocal 20 percent.
Back in the office eating mints, a quote from the film A Clockwork Orange comes to mind:
"Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited."
I might eat a durian again, sure. But it would probably be on a dare. With me instigating. I've done the durian, homes.
.