My family moved to the town of Kuantan in Malaysia about 35 years ago. At that time it was a pragmatic little place of two or three streets, boasting the only traffic light in the state of Pahang. The tiny Cold Storage supermarket sold exotica like tinned cheese, orange squash and chocolate bars with little worm tunnels in them. The packets of flour were full of small creatures that had to be sifted out; we had never seen weevils before. Or cockroaches…
Across the street was the wet market, where your chosen chicken was decapitated and plucked while you waited, and a man with leprosy offered watermelons carefully balanced between his fingerless hands. The dim recesses of the market were packed with pyramids of pungent spices, baskets of mangoes and gleaming fish. The street had several eating shops, where rich curries bubbled in huge aluminum pots.
I was a teenager straight from a bland Canadian suburb, already interested in food. Everything was intense – the colours, the flavours, the smells. Especially the smells. It all intrigued me.
There wasn’t much to do at night. A couple of cinemas showed spaghetti Westerns and sword flicks, much of the action obscured behind subtitles in the three obligatory official languages. One hot night after the show, I hesitated at the door of the cinema. There was a different energy in the air than usual; something was happening.
Kerosene lanterns flared in front of the shuttered market. Usually the streets were deserted after dark, but tonight there was a hum of activity. Doors opened, shadowy forms appeared at shop house entrances. People were coming from every direction, walking quietly, purposefully, toward the market. I followed.
As we drew near I detected a smell that was entirely new to me — rich and sweet with a heavy, mysterious undertone. A crowd of several dozen people was gathered around a battered pick-up truck loaded with strange, spiky, football-sized objects. “Durian,” said the man next to me. “The first of the season.”
There was an air of festive excitement as people crowded around the tailboard of the truck. Their silhouettes danced in the lamplight as they reached out for the spiny fruit. They examined each one critically, smelling and poking it. I thought it seemed like a lot of enthusiasm for a rather unprepossessing fruit. Then somebody split one open with a parang, loosened a segment with the tip and offered it to me.
How can I describe my first taste of durian, all those years ago in the lamplit tropical night? It was strange, sweet, it was mysterious. I loved it.
Maybe it was the element of magic in that shadowy scene that gave me an enduring affection for this noble and contentious fruit. I’ve eaten it all over Asia. When I contracted my land in Ubud, Pak Mangku led me around and showed me the fruit trees. There were mango, rambutan, mangosteen, durian… My own durian tree. Perfect.
Durian, called the king of fruits, is wildly popular in its native Southeast Asia. It’s reputed to be the only fruit that tigers will eat. Traditionally it matured on the tree and dropped when it was perfectly ripe. These days, it’s grown in plantations and harvested early so it will travel better.
This primitive tree is known to bear fruit for at least 150 years. There’s a legend that the durian tree never dies, but only ceases to exist when cut down or blown over in a storm. It will grow to 40 metres in height and over a metre in diameter. About 15 species are known, some of them endangered. The tree will bear up to 200 fruits a season when fully mature.
And what fruit — up to 9 kilos in weight and with an aroma that cannot be experienced with indifference. It’s been called the civet fruit and stinkvrucht, but I think it smells like overripe peaches and don’t find it unpleasant. Now that durians have become fashionable and can be purchased in Manhatten, a cult of durian snobs has sprung up. One pretentious twit describes the taste as, “Butterscotch, almonds, wild honey and a hint of smoked oak.” Good grief. It’s actually more of a cross between Limberger cheese and sherry with a hint of fried onion. And very nice, too.
Durian can be eaten fresh, made into cakes, flour or ice cream. Whatever way you eat durian, its essence will remain with you for several hours, colouring the air around you with its unique bouquet.
Combining durian with alcohol is said to be potentially deadly. Durian fans from all the Asian countries swear that it warms up the body. There’s an old saying in Malaysia, “When the durians come down, the sarongs go up.” When I was surfing the internet, there were several sites that advocated the durian as an aphrodisiac. I guess you both have to eat it.
The other day Nyoman showed me a cluster of small green buds hanging from my young durian tree. “Flowers are coming already,” he exclaimed. The durian flower, reputed to be as fragrant as the fruit, is pollinated only by the Dawn Bat. I’m hoping we have some in the neighbourhood. There’s a certain poignant satisfaction to be standing under my own durian tree, waiting for the warm tropical night when I will first taste its fruit.
