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Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward
- claudiawerner 6y agoExotic fruits have been interesting to me in a while, and I hope to get my hands on some in my own country. For others interested, there's a channel which is all about exotic fruits and foods in general (including Thai ones), and his videos are always extremely informative and conscious[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChsbD6Clp-ZPqKwXJR3V7DQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChsbD6Clp-ZPqKwXJR3V7DQ
- Nursie 6y agoOn a recent trip to Bangkok it was often hard to tell whether one was approaching an actual open sewer or just a durian stall. Sad I missed the fruit market though, I bet they have a massive variety of banana cultivars. I tried a couple I'd never had before when over there.
- deanCommie 6y agoI'm curious is aversion to durian is at least somewhat genetic, similar to cilantro and broccoli. I spent 6 weeks traveling around Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam), including several days in Bangkok. I ate a metric ton of durian, jackfruit (my favourite), mangostein, lychie, and so forth. I never noted any negative durian odour, and I just assumed that "it must always be fresh in Southeast Asia", and any reports are based on stale or older fruit after it's travelled internationally...
- teruakohatu 6y agoAfter reading the article I thought the same thing. People who hate cilantro tend to absolutely hate even the thought of it.
- fiblye 6y agoI sometimes wonder if there's a genetic component affecting how people smell and taste durian, just like with cilantro. To me it's just a little stinky, like someone fried onions a couple hours ago and the smell is mostly faded, but the flavor is pure sweet creaminess. As an example, once made a cup of durian coffee in a different room on a different floor entirely and someone stormed out of the building because of the odor. I didn't mention that I made it before that happened, so it wasn't just an exaggerated response. Nobody else could smell it. Not even I could smell anything beyond just plain old coffee.
- sg47 6y agoI'm in this boat and my wife thinks I'm being fussy. The thought of cilantro wants to make me puke but no one ever seems to relate to it. The worst part is my native cuisine uses cilantro extensively.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> I'm in this boat and my wife thinks I'm being fussy. I'm curious about the phrasing here; as far as I can see, that's what "being fussy" means.
- sg47 6y agoShe thinks it's a choice. For me, when I eat cilantro I really do feel like puking. There was a study that said cilantro tastes like soap to 10% of the population.
- martythemaniak 6y agoI think Durian hate is mostly memetic. Still, it is a very strong flavour, so even if you like it, it's easy to get overwhelmed by it. It doesn't have the easy eatability of mangosteen or lychee. And lord help you if you let out even a small burp hours after eating it...
- Nursie 6y agoSeriously no, I have been repulsed by the stink of durian stalls before even knowing they were there. This is not a memetic reaction.
- Nursie 6y agoNope, not in my case at least, fresh and on-location it utterly stinks to my nose. This can't be uncommon, given the prevalence of rules against Durian consumption in enclosed public spaces in many places in the far east. Love me some mangostein, lychie, rambutan or snake-fruit though.
- grawprog 6y agoI've got a friend in the Philippines who loves durian. It's her favourite fruit. she goes nuts for it. She'll eat a whole bag at once and still want more. Even there though, there's people who can't stand it. A lot of her friends and coworkers dislike it and complain when she eats it around them.
- sg47 6y agoI liked durian icecream when I was there but I can't remember if I ate actual durian. I didn't mind the durian icecream but it did taste a bit like garlic icecream (which I have eaten in Gilroy) and jackfruit icecream mixed together.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThat’s it! Durian, to me, tastes like garlic soaked in petrol (“gas” for the Yanks).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 6y agoI guess it could be, but durian smells like a dumpster on a sunny day to me. That's much more pronounced than cilantro tasting a bit like soap.
- no_carrier 6y agoIt's actually the other way around. The pre-sliced or non-fresh durian tends to have lost a lot of the odour. Hotels and public transport in Thailand don't ban it for no reason.
- ValentineC 6y agoDurian in Singapore is often sold packed in styrofoam containers, then wrapped with lots of cling wrap. The smell still gets everywhere, and lingers for a bit.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoI wasn’t aware that broccoli aversion may be genetic, thanks! https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/aversion-to-broccoli-may-have-genetic-roots/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/aversion-...
- arcsin 6y agoNo one has mentioned so far that there are many variety of durian, which has different smells. Another factor is how ripe the durian is. For example, probably anyone could eat a montong durian that's not too ripe. The kind and ripeness that is most popular seems to vary by country as well.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoYup. Thais tend to like their durians fairly fresh and not so stinky, while some Malaysians push them right to the edge of rotting. (The parallels to cheese are quite clear.)
- peteretep 6y agoPerhaps, but Thai people are _well_ aware of how bad it smells, just like the French are well aware of how bad a tasty cheese can smell. It’s eaten here despite the smell, not because they can’t smell it.
- Chathamization 6y agoI've wondered that as well. I've always liked the smell of durian (as well as its taste), and have met others that do as well. Others seem to really hate it. I've always assumed that the vast majority of people hate the smell, but I'm actually not so sure now that I think about it. It might just be that the people who hate it are very vocal about it.
- hnick 6y agoI once read a description of having durian as something like "eating vanilla while standing next to a trash heap" and I have to say that's stuck with me as fairly accurate. There's a good flavour with some pretty bad bits but over time you learn to ignore or even like them. I quite like it, especially with dairy, but it seems to upset my stomach (durian burps aren't great).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 6y agoIs work being done to develop easy to peel, low seed count cultivars of various exotic fruits like these? I can only imagine that their consumptive experience is similar to what Native Americans dealt with when they first encountered bananas tens of thousands of years ago.
- tus88 6y agoPaywalled shit.
- harikb 6y agoAs someone who grew up in southern India in a house literally surrounded by at least few dozens of these trees[1], most of them also hosting black pepper creepers, I wonder how this became Thai Fruit? Come on, we even have a western name! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit
- sg47 6y agoBy Thai fruit, the article is referring to fruit popular in Thailand like jackfruit, lychee that are tasty but difficult to eat.
- mangamadaiyan 6y agoThe Durian isn't unique to Thailand either. None of the fruits in the article are, I'd wager. TFA even mentions a falling jackfruit injuring a man in Southern India.
- peteretep 6y agoHard to find a fruit stall without it in Thailand, but I’ve not seen if for sale in my (much more limited) time in India. It’s a staple in Thailand, so maybe that’s the reason?
- mangamadaiyan 6y agoIt depends on which part of India you're in, as well as the part of the city you're in. Jackfruit is definitely a staple in the South, and not so popular in the North. If you're in Bangalore, say, you're unlikely to find it in a supermarket; you'd have to go look for it in the right places.
- markdown 6y agoImagine being Chinese and having your fruit renamed something else by foreigners. Aussies are trying this bullshit right now with a Bolivian fruit called achachairu. See how this entire article calls it a made up name. And this is supposed to be a news website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-06-19/gallery-achacha-fruit/5531796?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-06-19/gallery-achacha...
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.vn/UKJCI https://archive.vn/UKJCI
- decafninja 6y agoMy wife loves fruit and she's willing to put in the effort to eat fruit (peel, dig, carve, etc. etc.) As for me, while there's certain fruit I do like a lot, I'm far less willing to put in the effort and often I just don't bother.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoThe primary limiting factor in distributing these is not that they're hard to eat: pineapples are a pain too, but they're available everywhere, while many of the fruit listed (eg. rambutan, salak/snakefruit, langsat/duku) are trivial to peel. Instead, it's simply that they don't transport well. Most tropical fruit available in the West are picked raw, kept refrigerated and chemically ripened on arrival, but this isn't possible for most of the fruit listed, certainly not mangosteens or langsat/duku.
- KMag 6y agoMy understanding is that this is the same reason why there are many more varieties of banana available in Thailand vs. the U.S.
- hackerbabz 6y agoBananas in SEA are so much more delicious than in America. They also have very thin skins.
- moneytide1 6y ago"when the rising mercury concentrates sugars" Mercury is not capitalized here, which makes a huge difference. In assuming astrological Mercury, not somehow the element?
- chihuahua 6y agoI assume it's a reference to rising temperature. Thermometers used to contain mercury which expands when heated.
- refurb 6y agoIt's a reference to a mercury (the element) thermometer. When the temperature rises, the mercury rises. It's been decades since mercury thermometers were common for the average person. We'll need to update our idioms!
- moneytide1 6y agoMakes sense now, temperature - I was looking into it too much because I've seen in Farmers Almanacs schedules of planting&harvesting with lunar cycles because the gravitational pull is thought to assist essential growth phases. I thought perhaps Thai farmers were also heeding Mercury alignment or retrograde to achieve a certain fruiting outcome (gravity from Mercury would be negligible compared to our Moon).
- legitster 6y agoThis isn't exclusive to exotic fruit either. In a trip to central Washington, I bought a flat of Pluots (plum/apricot hybrids), and they were one of the most profound things I have ever eaten. So sweet and juicy, they almost burst like water balloons when you took a bite. Less than four hours away from where they are grown, I have yet to find any varieties with the same magic available in grocery stores. They good ones are simply too delicate and too short lived. It ends up being worth the trip every year to go when they are in season.
- mjklin 6y agoIn Virginia we have pawpaw fruit that taste like custard, but must be eaten soon after picking since they bruise very easily and don’t store or ship well.
- markdown 6y ago> pawpaw fruit that taste like custard Do you mean pawpaw, or custard apple (aka sugar apple in the US)?
- mohaine 6y agohttps://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/pawpaw-trees https://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/pawpaw-trees To eat cut in half and eat with a spoon. So good. I planted a three variety pack 5ish years ago and got a lot last year. Safely a late freeze mostly got them this year
- ndespres 6y agoThey are describing a fruit known in parts of the US as pawpaw and custard apple both. Never heard it called "sugar apple" but there are 2 different fruits known as custard apple so maybe you are thinking of a different one.
- markdown 6y agoThis is the one I meant: Annona squamosa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar-apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar-apple) It's called custard apple in my country. We call papaya, pawpaw. Any discussion of fruit needs to use their botanical names since they're called different things in different places.
- selimthegrim 6y agoLongan and papaya are pretty easy to find in New Orleans if you know where to look. In the Indian subcontinent a common phrase is "the jackfruit is still on the tree and you've already put oil on your lips/mustache" meaning don't count your chickens before the eggs have hatched.
- refurb 6y agoMy wife's family is from SE Asia and I always eat way more fruit than normal when visiting. It's always cheap, plentiful and high quality. Star fruit are one of my favorites. Kind of a crunchy, tart apple flavor.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoTry a golden starfruit next time, and ripen it until the edges turn brown. It will now be sweet and juicy.
- exabrial 6y agoHilariously, in Singapore jackfruit is banned on public transport because it smells so awful. I tried some of this though and it it's not a flavor that I had tasted before. Hard to describe but really good if you could hold your nose for the smell.
- late2part 6y agoJackfruit or Durian?
- thelittleone 6y agoMost definitely Durian. Jackfruit is amazing too though. It's used a lot as a "meat" substitute. For example, jackfruit curry is delicious, nutritious and hearty.
- 3131s 6y agoCooked jackfruit is really good, and you can cook and eat the seeds too. Jackfruit and palm fruit in curries are some of my favorites.
- exabrial 6y agoIt's durian! Brain fart
- userbinator 6y agoThat said, extremely ripe jackfruit will also emit a sickly-sweet smell that's "so sweet it stinks", like an overdose of perfume.
- 3131s 6y agoI actually like the smell of rotting jackfruit, but that is a good description.
- PakG1 6y agoAnd in other news, durian causes an evacuation in Germany and sends people to a hospital... but I love durian! https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/europe/durian-germany-evacuation-scli-intl-grm/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/europe/durian-germany-evacuat...
- userbinator 6y agoLast year, staff at the University of Canberra library were forced to evacuate the building due to a suspected gas leak, but a search revealed the stench was in fact caused by the fruit. That's what I've always associated the smell of durian with --- not stinking or rotting as others often say, but "gas leak". Not surprisingly, the same compound is responsible for both: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol
- reedlaw 6y agoDragon fruit can be grown in California, Florida, and Hawaii and is not "bland mush with tiny seeds that can require floss to dislodge". The author must have had a bad one. They can be extremely sweet. The seeds are so small that they go down without noticing and I've never had to use floss. My favorite is a variety with deep red flesh. Mangosteen is so far from its depiction---"to eat a pile of mangosteens is an exercise in disappointment"---that I wonder what kind of pile the author ate. In the US, imported mangosteens can run $20 a pound, so getting a few bad ones would be a disappointment. I suppose many vendors would issue a refund for the bad ones. But in Thailand a pile of mangosteens is so cheap that you wouldn't bother. They are exquisite, almost the fruit equivalent of ice cream (they taste better chilled). It's no wonder they call it the queen of fruits. Durian likewise deserves its designation as king of fruits. Most people, myself included, are repulsed on the first encounter. But if you can get over the initial shock, you will enjoy the most flavorful fruit with custard-like texture. Its flavor can be described as a combination of many other fruit flavors with a complexity only matched by good coffee and dark chocolate. Jackfruit is cheap and abundant in Mexican and Asian supermarkets in the US. The trouble is peeling and finishing a whole one. Some stores may sell wrapped pieces if you just want a taste. But if you have some guests and time to work with gloves and a knife, eating a whole jackfruit is a memorable experience.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoRe: mangosteens, the author isn't saying mangosteens taste disappointing, they're saying that finding lots with the 'mustard blight' is disappointing. If you can pick your own, though, they're in my experience pretty avoidable: go for ones that are purple, not black, and avoid any that have traces of yellow leaking from the top.
- reedlaw 6y agoYes, it's easy to avoid 'mustard blight' if you know how to choose. Also, don't choose rock-hard fruits. The middle should give a little when gently squeezed (squeezing too hard would split open the peel).
- hnick 6y ago
- ponker 6y agoI'm a homebody but great fruit I will travel for. The absolute best fruit is ripened on the plant to the point of being so soft that it would be destroyed if handled. I drive hours to various wild blackberry bushes around Northern California and eat them right off the bush -- just the act of separating them from the bush basically splits them in half so they could never be sold commercially.
- alexmingoia 6y agoAll of these fruits are popular all over Southeast Asia and India.
- maguay 6y agoAnother fun Thai fruit: ตะขบ (`da kop`), which are these tiny custard-like berries that literally spoil within hours after picking them. They make great shade trees, so you can often find them growing over a road in residential areas, and just pick a couple to eat on the spot. You'll never find them in a store, but they're a quintessential part of childhood here.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoIs this the same as da kop farang, or are these different fruits/berries? https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%9D%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B1%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%87 https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%82%E0...
- maguay 6y agoYup, that's the same! Apparently the name has _farang_ in it since the tree isn't originally native to Thailand; Wikipedia says it's a transplant from Mexico, interestingly enough.
- 3131s 6y agoI live in Cambodia where all of these fruits are available, and more. I like every fruit mentioned, except salak, and eat many of them every day. This author comes off as a deeply uncultured American giving a generic impression of a drunken 3-5 day visit to SEA. There are so many errors in this article it's unreal. Jackfruit does not have a "jagged sheath" (that's durian). Dragon fruit is only mushy when it's badly bruised or overripe, and there are other varieties that are sweeter and richer than the white variety. Durian does not "stink of death". Salak are normally imported from Indonesia, as far as I know. Maybe the author is thinking of salacca wallichiana, which is related but tastes very different? Describing a langsat as a "demure cousin" of the lychee is a totally meaningless way of saying that they belong to the same order of plants.
- magnio 6y agoIt puzzles me how the smell of durian, which I find very aromatic, can be disgusting to some people. Also dragon fruit is a 'bland mush'? I've must have been eating the wrong fruit. There's also a red dragon fruit which is a little tastier.
- 3131s 6y agoAnd a purple one which has a sweeter and earthier taste, which is my favorite. There are also many varieties of passion fruit, some of which are very sweet. One time I had a batch of an heirloom variety of yellow passion fruit from a small farm in the provinces and it really was unlike anything I've ever had since.
- Nursie 6y agoPassiflora fruits are very varied, there may be a hundred varieties, with all sorts of different flavours. There's even one that stinks of garlic!
- unixhero 6y agoFor one Durian is poisonous in certain quantities that vary from person to person. That smell is a warning.
- rcpt 6y agoThese are all pretty easy to find in Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay. How many other things do you see if you actually venture to SE Asia? Central America has all kinds of things that I never see here, eg. canistel or black sapote, as well as variants of mango, corn, and banana that don't sell in the US.
- 3131s 6y agoThere are many more varieties, as you said. I am literally about 100 meters from maybe 5-6 varieties of bananas and 10-12 varieties of mangoes. There are 4 varieties of dragon fruit here too, all excellent. The cheaper varieties of mangoes are similar to what Americans are familiar with, but much more consistent. Mangoes grow so readily here that in season I can get a kilo for $0.25 and they're always perfectly ripe. There is a more expensive variety that is purely sweet and has a more gelatinous texture, and it feels "decadent" in the same way that a rich chocolate cake does. The bananas are way better, especially some of the smaller varieties that have a thicker consistency. There are cart vendors everywhere here that grill those small bananas and sell them on sticks. And then there are many others in the markets, a lot of which don't have common names in English but all of them are great really. It's so cheap that in my diet I eat fruit instead of rice or bread as a carbohydrate source. Even most imported fruits are pretty reasonably priced, so you can still easily find things like apples, champagne grapes, cherries, etc.
- nerdponx 6y agoJackfruit is pretty uncommon in NY City outside of specialty Asian markets. Durian even moreso. Dragonfruit exists mostly as a frozen smoothie ingredient, although you can get it seasonally as well. Lychee is somewhat available seasonally, longan never or almost never. And I've never seen a Pomelo outside of SE Asia.
- Nursie 6y agoI can buy Pomelo at fruit shops and at least one fruit stall in the middle of a mall here in Southampton, UK. It's strange what travels to some places and not others. I bought one a few years ago and was disappointed at the small amount of grapefruit-ish flesh, not realising how people actually eat them (candied peel and pith) in parts of Asia.
- Markoff 6y agounpopular opinion - durian is overrated, I don't get what's so special about it, even the smell is not really that big, people must have fancy noses if they think it's particularly smelly, some European cheeses are way more (unpleasantly) smellier my favorite of exotic fruit is dragon fruit - looks nice, easy to consume with spoon, good flavor
- mohankumar246 6y agoJackfruit is one of the most nutritious and colon healthy vegetable on the planet. It is full of healthy fiber and keeps you feeling full long after unlike other vegetables. Many families in South india cosume lot of jackfruit in the season. https://thejackfruitcompany.com/jackfruit-101/ https://thejackfruitcompany.com/jackfruit-101/
- 3131s 6y agoAnd the seeds are edible when cooked!
- 082349872349872 6y agoEasy Mode Durian: frozen durian has most of the taste and little of the smell.
- thewileyone 6y agoThai durian is nothing when compared to the smell and taste of Malaysian durian. I love durian but the smell can be overpowering. I left a few in my car for an afternoon, parked in an underground garage, to bring to my family after work. I had to drive with the windows down for 2 weeks.
- thisrod 6y agoHere in Australia, you can actually get fresh durians! There are only 50 odd trees in the country, near Darwin, so the fruit cost a mint by the time they are flow to Melbourne and Sydney. They're good. The consensus is better than the Thai ones, but I hang around Malaysians, who have a low opinion of Thai durians. Around 1980, there was talk of growing tropical fruit in Northern Australia. Our seasons are out of phase with Asia's, so that would have made a lot of sense. I don't know why it didn't happen. There is one problem that the article doesn't mention: people who haven't been to Southeast Asia tend to mistake the durian smell for a gas leak, and call the fire brigade. You have to be careful where you take them in the west.
- avcdsuia 6y ago> the durian would still probably have the highest grapple factor among Southeast Asia’s endemic fruits. Thai exports of the fruit are mostly destined for China, where consumers tend to be more willing to work for their meals. Actually, Durain is not that hard to process, a chopstick or a screwdriver can do the job easily, can't be harder than opening a whole Jamón.
- gumby 6y agoThese fruit are hardly unique to Thailand and I ate them all as a kid in Malaysia (which of course abuts Thailand) and Singapore. I believe they are all available in other nearby countries as well. National borders are pretty arbitrary.
- michelb 6y agoI'm always amazed at the various types of delicious fruit nature produces. Walking over a foreign market is like fruit fantasy land for me.
- oska 6y agoDragon fruit is actually native to Central America, not SE Asia. It's the fruit of a cactus. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitaya
- voldacar 6y agoThe author must have had an overripe dragonfruit - their flavor is subtle but quite lovely. not tasteless or mushy in the slightest
- enriquto 6y agoWhat's going on with the nyt? This is incredibly bad quality writing.