I smelled, I tasted...I conquered??

All week I have been hearing a debate here in Malaysia...


It is pretty evenly divided...half say: "JUST SAY NO TO DURIAN"


and the other half say: "DURIAN, THE KING OF ALL FRUIT"


The debate is so heated that they even made a dorm rule...

"NO DURIAN IN ANY SCHOOL REFRIGERATOR!"


So well...Today I went to a food mart with 3 students from Penang and they bought some Durian for me to taste...


...AND let me just say...its almost indescribable...


Knowing me though, I will try to paint a picture...


We get to the food stand, and there are sealed containers of Durian Fruit. The woman at the stand insists that it is the King of all Fruits, so one of the girls I was with picked up the container and opened the lid...The smell...


Well...It smelled like a cross between rotting jackfruit and dirty socks...have to say...the smell in no way gave off the impression of "King" unless it was King Tut and he had been rotting for a few hundred years....

BUT despite the smell, I agreed to try this one of a kind, King of all Fruits..

After our meal...out came the container of Durian...and off came the lid...HELLO SMELL

But as promised I grabbed my piece of fruit...

And again, was very very surprised...It was peeled already and looked like an internal organ of some type...maybe liver??

And as I picked it up, it was squishy, so squishy in fact the my fingers disappeared into the gooey texture of the fruit


There was an outer layer, of something?? Maybe skin?? Then the inside, which was equivalent to a room-warm cheesecake texture.


As I bit into it, the fruit, as cheesecake would, it dissolved in my mouth without needing any chewing whatsoever...it tasted like it smelled at first...with a weird sour pineapple flavor at the end.

I ate the whole thing, and came to a large seed pod at the end...thinking to myself, okay...if you don't smell the thing when you eat it...its not TO bad, that is if you can get over the texture...

BUT then, I did the thing that everyone told me not too...I burped...I couldn't help it...and like garlic that lingers...my breath smelled & tasted like the rotting fruit and sock mixture that I had just consumed...

My opinion, now that I have experienced Durian for myself is...

1. I am glad its not allowed in the dorm refrigerator, and
2. I am a "JUST SAY NO TO DURIAN" kinda girl...

For all my lovely friends out there...if you see the King of Fruit...run in the opposite direction and breathe through your mouth!!