Yummy durian
I fairly leapt down the three flights of stairs to a narrow laneway and out of the side gate of the university.
As I had hoped, the noon tram was just trundling round the corner. It slowed for the stop and I jumped aboard. My goal was two stops further along where, with careful timing, I could dash into what we teachers called the Dog Steak Shop just ahead of the clerks pouring out of the palace gate eager for their lunch too.
I spied Sompot Upa-in, who is a lecturer at Bangkok's Silpakorn University, waving frantically for me to get off the tram. I stood and staggered to the rear steps and did a balletic leap for the kerb. Sompot caught me. "What's up?" I gasped as he pulled me up from the gutter.
Just at that moment, I noticed a distinct odour all over that road, one of pungent vegetable decay, and I saw stacks of what looked like medieval maces heaped up along the kerb and piled up in front of shops. Some were oblong like rugby balls, others were round like soccer balls and about the same size, but all had great sharp spikes on them, like lumps of pointy iron meant to crush helmeted skulls in chivalrous combat.
I didn't add the smell to the appearance. Bangkok is a city full of smells, some enticing, some distinctly off-putting. This was one of those nose-searing acrid stinks.
Sompot helped me to scrape up my notebooks and pulled me out of danger of the tram's shiny steel wheels. "Don't get yourself killed yet," he said. "You have a new and wonderful experience waiting for you."
He tugged and I stood shakily. "Go in there," he ordered.
On both sides of the entrance to the narrow air-conditioned food shop he was dragging me into were more of those kinghts-in-armour maces, only light brown and mixed with green instead of rusting iron lumps.
"What are these?" I splutered.
"Later, later," Sompot urged. "You've got a wonderful treat coming. Sit down and order a drink - I suggest water, plain cold water."
He disappeared out of the door and through the shop window, I watched him lifting, testing one of the unfriendly looking vegetables, gingerly turning it as if for weight. The shopkeeper then pressed a dangerously sharp-looking scalpel into it and ripped out a strip of thick hide exposing a bright yellow inside. My friend paid and came back into the shop. He handed the pointy lump to a waiter and sat down.
"Water, plain water," he called.
"You still haven't told me what this is, that pointy thing," I said. "And what happened to the drains around here - everything has a new stink, not like yesterday's." Could it be that the tidal Chao Phraya River had backed up Bangkok's sewers?
Sompot laughed. "Those are durians. They've just arrived from the country."
"Durians!" I'd heard the name uttered in awe by a foreigner whose nose crinkled even as he spat out the word.
Many visitors to Thailand have read of the evil stench of the durian, and how dangerous the fruit can be if it drops off its tree onto your windscreen ... or your head. In Malaysia they often stretch rope nets under the trees to catch the falling fruit before it clobbers some luckless soul.
It even has a reputation as an aphrodisiac, but is reputed to be dangerous if a heavy drinker guzzles liquor while eating it.
As one Malay chap put it, "A shot of hard liquor after a durian feast is apt to drop you in your tracks!" Here then is a fruit with a reputation.
The shopkeeper came back with a platter and two plates, and with clever surgical artistry he plunged his knife into the tough hide, twisted it and broke the fruit into two pieces. In either half nestled several bright yellow blobs, like dinosaur eggs, perhaps, in a snug nest.
Sompot watched me. "Now, dig one out .... with your fingers. Like this, scoop it out and eat it slowly. Enjoy the flavour and the texture. Ah ...." He breathed deeply. "This is a good one. It's called mon thong, the golden pillow. It's one of the best. Use your thumb, dig it out and eat it. Slowly, like I said. Savour it."
That very day commenced my love affair with the king of fruit, the smelly, mace-like durian. In contrast to durian's outward appearance, the flesh inside was soft and custardy. As I pried up a blob, my fingers sank into it. I held it under my nose. "It doesn't stink!"
The flesh fairly melted in my mouth. "I've never tasted anything like this. What's that taste?" I muttered through my mouthful.
I'd heard someone say it's like something dead and decaying. But it seemed to me it was more like a happy symphony of bananas, caramel, vanilla and garlic or onion spread.
Sompot was less analytical. "Most people just eat, like their fingers and dig back in for more."
"I do like it," I cried with enthusiasm as I plunged in to gouge out another piece.
"Easy there! If you eat too much you'll suffer from ron nai."
"Heartburn," I translated, flinging caution to the wind.
Later I learned that the durian, Durio zibethinus, is a mber of the Bombacaceae family of trees that includes the fat-trunked African baobab, the kapok and the South American balsa tree. This native plant of Southeast Asia is cultivated mostly in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, where, with careful selection from chance seedling, they produce several varieties of edible (delicious!) fruit.
Most come ripe in a six-week period from early May through June. The result is great stacks, a veritable Himalaya of durians. Exportation is made difficult by the urgency of sending the durians to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. Durian is also exported to Australia, North America and Europe. Some dedicated enthusiasts may be willing to pay up to 1200 baht for off-season durian.
First-class hotels in Bangkok ban guests from bringin them in. This is also true of airlines. They fear the problem of the aroma getting into their air-conditioning.
As Sompot pointed out, the durian may produce heartburn. I found that to be true after, in my enthusiasm, I had wolfed down a whole ripe durian after only an hour-long sitting.
My friend's warning was also borne out by Dr Saiyud Niyomviphat during a seminar on diabetes mellitus at the Vejthani Hospital in Bangkok. The durian has a high kilojoule count with lots of phosphorus and sugar, which may cause high cholesterol. When asked by a participant if diabetics should avoid it altogether, the doctor laughed. Making a fist, she said, "If you can restrict yourself to no more durian than this - about half a lump - then it will probably be alright."
Then she added, "For true durian enthusiasts it will prove almost impossible to restrict themselves to that small amount! Otherwise, you should reduce other high-kilojoule food, had you already had a durian that day."
Self-deprecting laughter by the audience may have proved her right.
I don't know how many durians I have eaten in the decades since my introduction to the king of fruit. Maybe hundreds. But I do know I have never selected one. I've always let someone more knowledgeable pick it out for me, or the vendor chooses one.
"It's the best!" he would explain when I stopped at a roadside stand or pulled up behind a utility loaded with fresh-from-the-orchard fruit.
For another thing, if I lived alone on an island where there were kilometres of durian orchards, I would starve to death. For I cannot for the life of me find out how you open these things.
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