TAIPEI – There are more than 500 types of tropical culmination in Asia, ranging from a common mango to a difficult santol to understand. But few have gotten as much foreign press as the durian.
Originally from the Malay Peninsula, it is a polarizing fruit for those who are not exposed to it. Some have their appearance – round, thorny and up to 30 centimeters long – to a medieval torture device and others have been so nauseating because of their smell that they have been hospitalized. Once, a shipment of poorly packed fruit left an entire plane ashore.
However, for many of the 670 million people in Southeast Asia and beyond, the durian is far from harmful. Cultivated in the region, but especially in Malaysia and Thailand, it is a remarkable summer delight: its types are adored for its fragrant pulp, with flavors that can range from creamy cream to sour and alcoholic liquor. And it even inspires the holidays.
Durian Kelvin Tan’s importer began hosting his sukawas in Singapore a year ago. An addition of Malay and Hokkien, sukawa means “in our free time” and the occasion is similar to the Japanese omakase, where the chef chooses dishes for visitors according to seasonal specialties. But from meticulously selected pieces of fish, the tasting revolves around rare breeds of Durians that can only be accessed by those who have the right connections.
Each sukawa includes six courses of durian, all cultivated in small quantities, adding one that Tan calls gooeyrian due to its fluffy texture, such as the sweet Japanese mochi, and known as Dalit, which is harvested wildly in the jungles. Borneo.
But unlike the maximum races of durian, whose pulps are other shades of yellow, ranging from the muted cake to the bright school bus, the Dalit pulp is a striking saturated blood orange and has the flavor of a mixture of “jacquier, almonds, peanut butter, watermelon and gum, all combined,” he says.
The Sukawas are intimate matters, up to 8 others; there simply aren’t enough infrequent durians to accommodate larger groups. But Tan, which is the Singapore durian delivery company 99 Old Trees, has also hosted durian parties for more than 500 people with more common types such as Musang King and Durian Black Thorn.
“We’re having dinner and that’s it,” he says. “You’re just filling your face with durian.”
This probably isn’t the first thing they can think of when Westerners think of durians. But the smell of durian is not as shocking as it is misunderstood, says Lindsay Gasik, an American blogger on the durian recently founded in Thailand: “Why in Western culture the only thing you can find on the Internet about the durian is how terrible it is? Is it?” Gasik has been writing about durian since 2012 in his Year of the Durian, where he also organizes durian tours and sells durian internationally.
Strong reactions are unfounded. The Durians are unquestionably spicy, but the way this spice is interpreted makes all the difference. “The duurian is full of volatile compounds,” says Tan, “some other people have a headache and it’s not for everyone. But for us, a duurian is an herbal dessert. It’s like a custard that develops in trees.”
For Zona Tan-Sheppard, which sells durian in Australia through his company, The Thorny Fruit Co., disgust is understandable. “Sometimes the first smell you feel is gas, so the picture is in that fight-or-flight mode,” he says. “It’s herbal having this negative connotation. Array… [But] for those who grew up with him, he triggers smart memories.”
He points out that not all Durians have the same flavor. “You can get custard flavors and a little onion,” he says. “I’ve discovered that Anglo-Australians like the maximum fermentation Durians that have an alcoholic flavor.”
It’s the diversity of fruits that makes those tastings so appealing. The Sukawas are just the tip of the iceberg: Gasik estimates that there are a lot of durian festivals a year in Southeast Asia.
“Many of these festivals are festivals in the western sense of the word,” says Gasik, who attends an average of two a month. “There’s a lot to do besides buying durian. The passing government needs to advertise farmers in this region and asks everyone to move to an express car parking lot and sell their products.
Highlights include the Tenom Durian Festival in Malaysia and the Tagum City Durian Festival in the Philippines. “They’ll do things like have live music, a festival between farmers [and] tastings and organize other kinds of culinary events,” he says. “I went to one where they had a durian dinner contest where you had to have your hands on your back.
For participants, these festivals are a form and a percentage of their love for fruit. “When I worked for Fujitsu in Malaysia, I organized durian festivals every year for the company,” says Tai Chong Poh, a durian farmer in Malaysia. “It was the most productive liaison query a company can have for its employees.” Today, Poh owns a 9-acre farm in Pahang with six hundred durians.
In Hong Kong, there are even compromised durian buffets, such as the Durian BB. “At all-you-can-eat parties, Musang King’s durians are the highlights,” says KK Yuen, Durian BB’s spouse. Musang King is a breed of durian from the district of Raub in Pahang, Malaysia, appreciated for its flavor of butter and custard. Featured through a series of purchases by Macau tycoon Stanley Ho, the Musang is a foreign favorite, especially among the Chinese.
At DurianBB, consumers pay $90 for a buffet session, which is roughly the value of a Musang King in China. “Participants can eat whatever they need in less than two hours for the value of a durian,” Yuen explains. Founded in 2012, the company now has branches in Asia and has hosted around three hundred durian buffets and has served more than 30,000 attendees. Although the first buffet sales were slow, soon “it was as if we were promoting iPhones”.
For those who need more intimate experiences with durian, there are specialized tours, resorts and farm remains, especially in Malaysia and Thailand, where itineraries revolve around durian intake and durian farm intake.
“We spent eating durians there for 3 days,” says Sukendro Sutrisno, an Indonesian businessman and aspiring durian farmer. Sutrisno has enjoyed durian all his life and for the more than five years, he and he have made summer pilgrimages to Malaysia only to spend time in committed durian resorts such as the Bilut Hills Durian Resort, which has 25 acres of durian trees on his property, and Bao Sheng Durian Farm, which offers cooking services in the durian in addition to the farm and tasting normal.
Like many other people in Southeast Asia, Sutrisno grew in fruit. He remembers that his father brought home a complete rickshaw in the 1970s and that the total circle of relatives had swallowed it all in two days. She’s even going to have durian complexes with her daughter Melissa. “Durian is an event of the family circle,” melissa says. “Open it together. These are smart times.”
Unlike maximum fruits, which are eaten with little or no fanfare, eating durian is a matter of red. The Durians have a lifespan of two to 3 days and are giant, weighing 1 to 3 kg.
Tan-Sheppard began hosting durian parties in Australia at the expiration of 2019, where it serves a combination of Australian-raised durians and imported varieties, but with social estrangement measures in place due to COVID-19, he had to put a brake on the parties. ; almost everyone has done it. But the fruit is still in the foreground through fans and durian meetings are taking place around the world, albeit more privately.
“When the fruit falls from the tree,” he says, “you don’t take it and you eat it yourself like you would with an apple. You share yourself with one or two other people and you throw a party.”
“Nobody,” he adds, “has an apple.”
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