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Monday, August 11th, 2003
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8:44p - Wah lau, this durian damn can die one, hor!
As my visiting friend Jennie and I walked down East Broadway this Friday on our way to eat at Phở 89 we passed several fruit stands. We decided to come back after lunch and try some fruit. Just as I said that what I really wanted to try was a durian, but that I doubted we could find one here, I looked up and saw a bunch. What I knew about the fruit was that:
1. It is about the size of a basketball and is completely covered with spikes.
2. It grows on 20-40 meter trees in Southeast Asia.
3. When it falls off these trees, it has been known to kill people.
4. It stinks so badly that it is banned on public transportation in Singapore.
5. Ang mor gao aren't supposed to like its taste. That didn't stop me from eventually eating and loving asam laksa despite that waitress though.
 So, we bought one, of course. I got about seventy welts on my arms trying to hold it, so I put it in my backpack, which it managed to puncture in three places over the course of the day. We took it on the train several times. It didn't stink up the train at all; one could barely smell it even right outside the backpack. However, several people wound up pressed against my backpack on a particularly crowded train. They didn't seem to enjoy that. I'm pretty sure I heard one sharp "ouch" and that I caused it. We had originally planned to eat it for dinner. Instead we saved it for Saturday's lunch. We took it to a little park on Sixth Avenue and managed to cut it open with a large knife without too much difficulty. The inside was as odd as the outside: it had five compartments of yellow pulp (surrounding its seeds) and some white pulp. We had to try it quickly: it seemed like every fly in SoHo had picked up the fruit's scent.
I went first. Despite my reaction, Jennie also tried some. It had the consistency of custard, the smell of a trash bag full of rotting canteloupes, and the taste of very strong onions. I suppose that someone who can tolerate onions might develop a taste for it. That was neither of us. Someone walked by and said "You're eating a durian! Very brave!" Five other people walked by, looked at us like we were insane, and quickly shuffled away. The experiment had failed. It was really, really bad. We left the rest to the flies.
current mood: hungry
current music: Officer Emerson, The Ladykillers, Kiss and Tell (6 comments |comment on this)
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