Malaysia: Stink beans & Durian

Just returned from dinner at a traditional Malaysian restaurant called Bijan.

Good food. Huge portions.

If you've read my earlier attempts at eating weird stuff over here will know I'll try most things.

So, true to form, I started with 'Stink beans'. They taste like crude oil smells (if you've seen the oil tank exhibit @ the Saatchi museum, you'll know what I mean). Not at all nice.



After a massive curried lamb shank, (and several beers to get rid of the oil taste), I dared to try Durian for the first time.

For those who don't know, Durian is a very ugly fruit with, what can only be described as one of the most foul smells in the world.

It's for sale in HK supermarkets - but had not tried it hitherto ... you can smell the fruit for sale before you even enter the store. Had to focus really hard to eat it tonight. Not a completely nice experience. Smells like dead cat.



Here's what wikipedia has to say about it (and they're pretty close to describing the pong).

Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy.”

Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable"; more recent descriptions by westerners can be more graphic.

Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations Season 2 said of the odour: "The smell can only be described as – indescribable...sort of like French-kissing your dead grandmother."

Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:
“ ... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

The unusual odour has prompted many people to search for an accurate description.

Comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray, and used surgical swabs.

The wide range of descriptions for the odour of durian may have a great deal to do with the wide variability of durian odour itself. Durians from different species or clones can have significantly different aromas; for example, red durian (D. dulcis) has a deep caramel flavour with a turpentine odour, while red-fleshed durian (D. graveolens) emits a fragrance of roasted almonds. The degree of ripeness has a great effect on the flavour as well. Three scientific analyses of the composition of durian aroma — from 1972, 1980, and 1995 — each found a different mix of volatile compounds, including esters, ketones and many different organosulfur compounds, with no agreement on which may be primarily responsible for the distinctive odour.

This strong odour can be detected half a mile away by animals, thus luring them. In addition, the fruit is extremely appetising to a variety of animals, from squirrels to mouse deer, pigs, orangutan, elephants, and even carnivorous tigers. While some of these animals eat the fruit and dispose of the seed under the parent plant, others swallow the seed with the fruit and then transport it some distance before excreting, with the seed being dispersed as the result. The thorny armored covering of the fruit may have evolved because it discourages smaller animals, since larger animals are more likely to transport the seeds far from the parent tree.

No wonder it's banned from public transport here.

Don't think I'll be eating it again!

M