Durian, probably not for me

Being a vegan has lead me to meet very interesting people and a whole new range of things that can be eaten. For example Durian, which I first heard about from Ha. Ha being quite the character, a raw vegan, hippy, cyclists with his own video blog on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/durianriders).

Now durian is an asian fruit and on its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian) it has a section called Flavour and odour “... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away."

As you can imagine this went straight on my list of things to try before I die. The other weekend I was in a new Asian Supermarket here in Cork, surprisingly I found some in the freezer! I gave it a quick sniff to make sure it was safe to take home and it seemed fine. So I packed it up in my backpack and did the rest of my shopping with it defrosting in my backpack. As I was in the sports store looking for some winter gear I was half expecting it to suddenly defrost and unleash an awful aroma in a dramatic fashion. Rather disappointingly it did not do this and i got it safe home without anyone thinking I had a full colostomy bag.

Another sniff around the packages and still nothing, clearly it still was not defrosted enough. Not wanting to risk the wrath of the livin lesbian I decided that defrosting in the fridge might not be a good idea. So rather cunningly (I thought), I put it out on the balcony and then forgot about it till the next day.

The next day with some excitement I remembered my little culinary adventure awaiting me and opened the door to a rather unimpressive smell of defrosted durian. I reminded myself of the descriptions, saying it tasted of fresh sweet cheesecake (not a very vegan description I know but its a non vegan world), while I unwrapped it and filled my kitchen with the smell of durian.

Luckily the livin lesbian was out or hiding in her room when I unwrapped, as I know she would have looked at me like I was a 5 year old kid making a poo sandwich (which in reality I pretty much was). The smell got a little over powering once I had the 2 layers of packaging off and the cling wrap off the first bit. Not sure really where to start and not wanting to get it any more of the smell on my hands I got a knife and fork out and scrapped a chunk off the seed, which I was not really expecting to be there. The texture reminded me of an over ripe mango which did not help.

So I got a fork full and got it in my mouth, it has the kind of texture that makes you not sure if its worth even chewing. My sense of smell and taste merged and I cant say I had the slightest taste of cheesecake. My sense of smell totally overwhelmed any kind of nice taste it could have inside.
After the first mouthful I contemplated my next move. This was not going to be a good dessert with custard and was not going to be lady puller like my sushi skills. I had a brief idea of making a durian smoothie so as not to waste it, fearing the blending would unleash more smelling enzymes I dumped the whole lot in the bin.

5 minutes later I realized my mistake and took the trash out to the big bin in the apartments basement.