Adventures with Bizarre Foods: Eating a Durian

One of our favorite shows to watch on Netflix is Bizarre Foods. It is hosted by Chef Andrew Zimmern, and he travels all over the US and the world to try local cuisine.  Many of the things he eats are really weird by American standards.  For example, he has eaten many dishes with various creepy-crawlies.  Also, many cultures eat other parts of the animal besides the regular muscle tissue, like heart, tripe, blood, stomach, tendon, brains, and both the male and female reproductive parts.  Sometimes things are raw, and sometimes things are cooked.  At first, Ben and I were kind of grossed out, but when Andrew explained that many of these ways of eating came out of necessity or poverty (i.e., eat what's hopping around your house and don't waste any part of the animal), we definitely gained a much better understanding and appreciation of how others eat, even if it is a bit odd.

When Andrew goes and samples all these foods, he is very up front about whether he thinks it tastes good or not.  He admits that very few things in his travels have really grossed him out.  However, there is one food that even Andrew Zimmern admits he cannot handle.  It is not blood, brains, tongue, eyeballs, or fried tarantuals.  Nope it is actually a fruit!  The Durian fruit.

There is an Asian market that opened in our area less than a year ago, where they have several of the bizarre foods we've seen featured on Bizarre Foods.  And as luck would have it, they carry the Durian fruit.  Ben and I were really curious about this thing, I mean how could a fruit be that gross?  So we took the plunge.  We bought one.

Me pointing to the Durian.  It weighs about 4 lbs and is really spiky.

We cut it open to reveal the pulp inside.  The pulp is rather custard-like in texture, kind of like a very soft mango.  It kind of comes in these separate compartments, each with a big seed.  The Durian certainly smelled strong, but it wasn't too bad, more like a very very ripe papaya.

So after mulling it over with our eyes for a couple seconds, we took the plunge.  Was Andrew Zimmern right or was he exaggerating???

Well, maybe a little of both.  The first bite wasn't too bad.  But the second and third bites were pretty gross.  I'm really not sure how to describe it, but I think the closest I can come is EXTREMELY ripe mango or papaya that has also started to rot.  It was sweet, but it was WAY too strong in flavor.  So after about 3 bites each (Ally quit after 1 bite), we tossed it in the garbage.  Actually, since the thing had become quite aromatic once we opened it up, I had to put it in the garbage can outside.

So although our experience with the Durian fruit was not terribly pleasant, we're still glad that we satisfied our curiosity.  I'm sure that this food is an acquired taste, but we won't be acquiring it any time soon.