This is a picture I pulled off the web, from Singapore.
On the sign it looks like a hand grenade but the durian is a fruit. The reason they're restricted is because of the smell. It's incredibly powerful and lingers for days. Everyone has an opinion. Most of them are bad. Anthony Burgess, the British author of "A Clockwork Orange," said it's "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory." Travel writer Richard Sterling says "its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock".
But I wanted to see, smell and taste for myself. I could not and find them in Bangkok. Here is a stack of them at a market in Luang Prabang, Laos.
The things are huge, up to a foot long and as heavy as seven pounds. Workers wear hard hats when harvesting, in case one falls, because not only are they heavy, they're covered with sharp spines. Farmers kick them into baskets rather than pick them up.
The photo above is from Laos but I actually tried durian in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I stumbled across them by accident. I had walked to the US consulate, and was walking back through a residential neighborhood when I saw a stall selling them. I confirmed that it was durian and made my purchase.
Inside are two loaf-shaped hunks of meat, about the size of a small sub roll. I bought a package of two small loaves for 100 baht, or about three bucks. The couple I bought it from were amused by my purchase. As I walked down the street three Thais pointed at the bag, asked "Durian?" and walked away laughing. They knew what I had in store...
To me it smells like rotten onions. Anyone who knows me that I'm a pretty adventurous eater but I absolutely can not abide the taste or smell of onions. But I did force myself to eat a few bites. The texture was smooth, like a custard, perhaps, and the taste was surprisingly mild, somewhat nutty with notes of vanilla.
I wanted my German photographer friend Michael to have a taste so I left it in my room for a few hours. Big mistake. When I got back the room smelled like an outhouse. Michael has seen more of the world than anyone I've met so he's pretty hard to surprise, but when he took his first whiff he literally gagged!
There are dozens of varieties of the fruit, each with its own special character. People that like durians love durians. But I don't expect to eat one ever again.
There is another fruit called the jack fruit which looks much like the durian, but has smaller pockets of meat inside. Oh, and the jack fruit is actually edible. I've met many tourists here who think they've experienced durian but have actually eaten jack fruit. Trust me, you'll know when it's a durian.
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