Behold, the fearsome DURIAN!



Regarded by many experts (read: me) as nature's most fearsome fruit, this exotic Asian delicacy has caused terror in the Western world ever since it was discovered some 600 years ago. Wikipedia says the following:

A durian falling on a person's head can cause serious injuries because it is heavy, armed with sharp thorns, and can fall from a significant height. Wearing a hardhat is recommended when collecting the fruit.

The famous 19th-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace notes, however, that on being struck by a durian,

death rarely ensues from it, because the copious effusion of blood prevents the inflammation which might otherwise take place.

I suppose that's good thing? But not only are the spikes a hazard--what you can't tell from the pictures is that this fruit has an overpowering sickly sweet odor, even before being cracked open. The smell is so strong that in Singapore, it is illegal to carry durians on the subway.



Clearly this is a fruit to be taken very, very seriously. Hence I deemed it necessary to wear my lab coat along with goggles and lung protection while handling the fruit.



Our own durian, obtained from a local durian dealership, weighed just short of 10 pounds and looked even more fearsome than the ones on the internet.



Cracking the hard, spikey shell was no easy task. My companions and I ended up using a butcher knife to cut it open. Probably not the best approach, but the extra sense of danger one gets from trying to hack open a sharp, dangerous object using another sharp, dangerous object is worth having.



After beating on it with the butcher knife for about 15 minutes, we finally opened it up enough to get to the stuff inside: a gelatinous, whitish yellow goo. At this point the smell was an overpowering, enigmatic sweet and sour, and the people who live two whole floors above the kitchen came down to see what was causing the smell.



Some of the goo, scooped out:



And finally, the moment of truth!



A very interesting flavor, I must say. Not unpleasant, like the odor, but still a taste that certainly must be acquired. Unfortunately, I succumbed to the velvety curtains of death before I could taste enough to really be able to describe it.