I don't believe at all that durian is as gag-inducing or vomit-inducing as many youtube videos lead us to believe. I suspect it is hammed up for views because it is indeed a pungent fruit, and the...
I don't believe at all that durian is as gag-inducing or vomit-inducing as many youtube videos lead us to believe. I suspect it is hammed up for views because it is indeed a pungent fruit, and the smell is both recognizable and travels far... I can easily smell a durian stall before I see it while driving on the street. But it doesn't smell like death or feet or anything rotten at all. I'm glad to see that this video somewhat validates this.
Eating it is a bit strange because the texture is very soft, the inside almost like a creme fraiche and the outside is a slightly more solid skin. I think we usually associate super soft fruit with overripe/rotten so this is where the texture issue may come from.
The taste, I think, is somewhere between onion and mango or jackfruit. It can be quite sweet and the oniony note just lingers in the background. But this will depend on the species of durian, of which I think there are a dozen or so.
It's not everyone's cup of tea but it's worth a try at least once if you can find a fresh one!
I'd say it's worthwhile to try even from frozen, if fresh is unavailable or price prohibitory. I like that they selected a menu that celebrates durian while being entry level friendly! It is...
I'd say it's worthwhile to try even from frozen, if fresh is unavailable or price prohibitory.
I like that they selected a menu that celebrates durian while being entry level friendly! It is indeed very close to how people eat it for real, check YouTube comments for actually Malay Filipino Thai cuisine!
So if people are trying at home, I would recommend to start with COLD or DRIED products, namely, durian flavoured ice cream mochi and freeze dried. Both can side step the "uh oh did I pick a bad one or is that supposed to be like this" aspect of trying new fruit without a guide to confirm, and one is sugar-milk'd to help with the strangeness, and the other avoids the custard consistency.
When human babies are born, a lot of our new food adventures ladder on to each other: they all started off with roughly the same temperature and same texture, and the range is largely limited to your own culture/geonlocation/season and preferences.
Trying something that you've never even smelled in passing before, from a limited hot climate range in the world, can be quite shocking. It's like me buying a huge block of blue cheese and trying to like it, without the usual context and quantity in which it appears in, or the steps of other cheeses that ladder well under it first.
I'm guilty of holding that prejudice against durian due to seeing Andrew Zimmern gag on it during his Bizarre Foods days. That dramatic scene inspired my mother's fiance and I to dare each other...
I'm guilty of holding that prejudice against durian due to seeing Andrew Zimmern gag on it during his Bizarre Foods days. That dramatic scene inspired my mother's fiance and I to dare each other in trying some if we see a stall in NYC. No stall was found, but a hard candy version was substituted. Maybe it was due to my preconceived biases as a teenager, but I gagged on that candy and my mom's fiance chicken out after he saw my reaction. I just recall it had this sickeningly sweet aspect that makes me think of overripe fruit.
After watching this video and your commentary and @chocobean's, I'm really intrigued to give it a try, but I'm wondering if I'll still recoil at that yucky sweet taste. It sorta reminds me of the same reason why I can't stand cantaloupe either; an almost rotten tasting sweetness. I don't know how else to describe it and whenever I explain to cantaloupe lovers they think I have a third head.
So my family is from Taiwan (iirc where the Bizzare Food episode was shot) and I've actually had it recently for the first time in a long time since childhood, I think if you want to try it low...
So my family is from Taiwan (iirc where the Bizzare Food episode was shot) and I've actually had it recently for the first time in a long time since childhood, I think if you want to try it low risk, you can always try it frozen! Frozen durian I find is not as bad as fresh. Don't feel too bad for not liking it if you can afford it! My parents, who lived half their lives in Taiwan, weren't able to finish it at all either, funnily enough. It's never gonna be the first thing i reach for but honestly it's not too bad!
While I don’t think it’s necessarily vomit-inducing, I was definitely taken aback when I was first exposed to it in Malaysia many years ago. I do recall “old garbage” as being a pretty good...
While I don’t think it’s necessarily vomit-inducing, I was definitely taken aback when I was first exposed to it in Malaysia many years ago. I do recall “old garbage” as being a pretty good descriptor of my interpretation of the smell. From the way you talk about it, it sounds like you may have been exposed to it a lot throughout your life. I wonder if this makes the smell more tolerable as it’s associated with the actual fruit and how the fruit tastes or whatever, versus a strange dissociated smell that is offputting for someone being exposed for the first time.
Believe it or not I only really had it for the first time about 2 years ago. I was very hesitant because of the hype but what really pushed me over the edge to try, and enjoy, it, was when I...
Believe it or not I only really had it for the first time about 2 years ago. I was very hesitant because of the hype but what really pushed me over the edge to try, and enjoy, it, was when I opened one myself.
Jackfruit has a very hard shell and the spikes are much sharper than they look - they can easily cut you. So opening one myself was a literal labour of blood and sweat (mostly because I was inexperienced… it’s less dramatic now)… I guess after that I had to eat it and maybe it just rewired my brain “it was so much work we have to think it’s good so that it was worth it”.
All that said I never did get the garbage smell, so I guess that’s just genetics or something. Maybe similar to how some people taste cilantro/coriander as soapy.
I think it's in the presentation, similar to how "you eat with your eyes, first." If you frame it as rotten flesh or feet, you can fill in the gaps as sort of a hallucination since there's so much...
I think it's in the presentation, similar to how "you eat with your eyes, first."
If you frame it as rotten flesh or feet, you can fill in the gaps as sort of a hallucination since there's so much going on. I've had frozen durian, then durian mochi ice cream balls, and then hard candies. Never have I noted anything rotten or foul, it was just intense. The hard candies were stronger than the frozen durian was, but let me sit with the flavor and figure out what was going on, and now I actually like it, even if it is kind of funky compared to just about any other fruit.
I'm not a fan of how the onion sorta sticks around, but that's just what those sulfurous chemicals do.
I'm Singaporean and as a kid I hated the taste of durian due to it being overtly bitter. I acquired the taste by eating durian-flavoured products like durian ice-cream. Since then I've also...
I'm Singaporean and as a kid I hated the taste of durian due to it being overtly bitter. I acquired the taste by eating durian-flavoured products like durian ice-cream. Since then I've also realised different species of durian have different tastes. I probably won't recommend one of the bitter species to a beginner, haha. Get one of the sweet ones.
Wow interesting! I've never noticed the "onion" taste. I'm in the Philippines and I've had durian fresh, frozen, and as a candy. I would describe the taste as very creamy, rich, and sweet. (To me...
Wow interesting! I've never noticed the "onion" taste. I'm in the Philippines and I've had durian fresh, frozen, and as a candy. I would describe the taste as very creamy, rich, and sweet. (To me it doesn't taste like onion or mango; it's just super creamy with a hint of jackfruit.) It does have a strong smell-- to me it's that overripe/rotten sweet fruit kind of smell.
I ate it regularly as a kid but I avoid it now as I think I've gotten more sensitive to smells and also feel like I can't digest it well anymore, it's just so rich and heavy :))
The onion taste might either be the specific kind I have had, or just my way of describing it. Definitely more on the jackfruit side than mango, actually. Jackfruit happens to be my favourite...
The onion taste might either be the specific kind I have had, or just my way of describing it.
Definitely more on the jackfruit side than mango, actually. Jackfruit happens to be my favourite fruit now and even that smell is too much for some people.
I don’t get to have durian too often because it’s just so expensive compared to other fruit and it’s not always in season.
Oooh, another Weird Explorer fan! I occasionally post his videos here too: https://tildes.net/~food?tag=weird_explorer So I definitely second the recommendation. :)
There's also the episode where he reviews sour sop. Again. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h4apvb13mqk He talks about how it WAS a fruit he loved, until he got massively sick eating one. Then years...
He talks about how it WAS a fruit he loved, until he got massively sick eating one. Then years later he's got a fruit reviewing channel and eventually he had to review it. He turned somewhat green. The experience went downhills from there.
feel free to mark this as noise but i just now realised that i haven't seen a bunch of the old test kitchen people since the whole drama unfolded. there were a few of those like Sohla that i kinda...
feel free to mark this as noise but i just now realised that i haven't seen a bunch of the old test kitchen people since the whole drama unfolded. there were a few of those like Sohla that i kinda miss watching because i really enjoy their energy.
can anyone give me a quick rundown of it now that the dust (hopefully) has settled? is Sohla with nyt kitchen as a permament gig now/do we know where the others have found homes?
Not noise at all! Offtopic a tiny bit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. But to answer your question, from a previous comment of mine: And Brad launched his own channel a few weeks ago. See...
Not noise at all! Offtopic a tiny bit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. But to answer your question, from a previous comment of mine:
Claire has her own Youtube channel too, if you're interested in seeing more from her. It's a pretty standard cooking (mostly baking) channel though, and she doesn't do a Gourmet Makes equivalent, or anything super fun like that anymore. :(
Another of my favorite's from BA, Gabby, also has her own channel as well. It's unfortunately pretty low production value though, and she also doesn't post often. :(
Edit: Oh, shit. How could I forget Carla and Priya? Shame on me! Carla also has her own channel now too. Like Claire, hers is also a bit of a standard cooking channel though. And Priya doesn’t have her own channel, AFAIK, but like Sohla she is now a regular on NYT Cooking too.
I don't believe at all that durian is as gag-inducing or vomit-inducing as many youtube videos lead us to believe. I suspect it is hammed up for views because it is indeed a pungent fruit, and the smell is both recognizable and travels far... I can easily smell a durian stall before I see it while driving on the street. But it doesn't smell like death or feet or anything rotten at all. I'm glad to see that this video somewhat validates this.
Eating it is a bit strange because the texture is very soft, the inside almost like a creme fraiche and the outside is a slightly more solid skin. I think we usually associate super soft fruit with overripe/rotten so this is where the texture issue may come from.
The taste, I think, is somewhere between onion and mango or jackfruit. It can be quite sweet and the oniony note just lingers in the background. But this will depend on the species of durian, of which I think there are a dozen or so.
It's not everyone's cup of tea but it's worth a try at least once if you can find a fresh one!
I'd say it's worthwhile to try even from frozen, if fresh is unavailable or price prohibitory.
I like that they selected a menu that celebrates durian while being entry level friendly! It is indeed very close to how people eat it for real, check YouTube comments for actually Malay Filipino Thai cuisine!
So if people are trying at home, I would recommend to start with COLD or DRIED products, namely, durian flavoured ice cream mochi and freeze dried. Both can side step the "uh oh did I pick a bad one or is that supposed to be like this" aspect of trying new fruit without a guide to confirm, and one is sugar-milk'd to help with the strangeness, and the other avoids the custard consistency.
When human babies are born, a lot of our new food adventures ladder on to each other: they all started off with roughly the same temperature and same texture, and the range is largely limited to your own culture/geonlocation/season and preferences.
Trying something that you've never even smelled in passing before, from a limited hot climate range in the world, can be quite shocking. It's like me buying a huge block of blue cheese and trying to like it, without the usual context and quantity in which it appears in, or the steps of other cheeses that ladder well under it first.
I'm guilty of holding that prejudice against durian due to seeing Andrew Zimmern gag on it during his Bizarre Foods days. That dramatic scene inspired my mother's fiance and I to dare each other in trying some if we see a stall in NYC. No stall was found, but a hard candy version was substituted. Maybe it was due to my preconceived biases as a teenager, but I gagged on that candy and my mom's fiance chicken out after he saw my reaction. I just recall it had this sickeningly sweet aspect that makes me think of overripe fruit.
After watching this video and your commentary and @chocobean's, I'm really intrigued to give it a try, but I'm wondering if I'll still recoil at that yucky sweet taste. It sorta reminds me of the same reason why I can't stand cantaloupe either; an almost rotten tasting sweetness. I don't know how else to describe it and whenever I explain to cantaloupe lovers they think I have a third head.
So my family is from Taiwan (iirc where the Bizzare Food episode was shot) and I've actually had it recently for the first time in a long time since childhood, I think if you want to try it low risk, you can always try it frozen! Frozen durian I find is not as bad as fresh. Don't feel too bad for not liking it if you can afford it! My parents, who lived half their lives in Taiwan, weren't able to finish it at all either, funnily enough. It's never gonna be the first thing i reach for but honestly it's not too bad!
While I don’t think it’s necessarily vomit-inducing, I was definitely taken aback when I was first exposed to it in Malaysia many years ago. I do recall “old garbage” as being a pretty good descriptor of my interpretation of the smell. From the way you talk about it, it sounds like you may have been exposed to it a lot throughout your life. I wonder if this makes the smell more tolerable as it’s associated with the actual fruit and how the fruit tastes or whatever, versus a strange dissociated smell that is offputting for someone being exposed for the first time.
Believe it or not I only really had it for the first time about 2 years ago. I was very hesitant because of the hype but what really pushed me over the edge to try, and enjoy, it, was when I opened one myself.
Jackfruit has a very hard shell and the spikes are much sharper than they look - they can easily cut you. So opening one myself was a literal labour of blood and sweat (mostly because I was inexperienced… it’s less dramatic now)… I guess after that I had to eat it and maybe it just rewired my brain “it was so much work we have to think it’s good so that it was worth it”.
All that said I never did get the garbage smell, so I guess that’s just genetics or something. Maybe similar to how some people taste cilantro/coriander as soapy.
Jackfruit, or durian? I always associated durian with the smell of gasoline.
Jackfruit just has a fruity smell to me.
I think it's in the presentation, similar to how "you eat with your eyes, first."
If you frame it as rotten flesh or feet, you can fill in the gaps as sort of a hallucination since there's so much going on. I've had frozen durian, then durian mochi ice cream balls, and then hard candies. Never have I noted anything rotten or foul, it was just intense. The hard candies were stronger than the frozen durian was, but let me sit with the flavor and figure out what was going on, and now I actually like it, even if it is kind of funky compared to just about any other fruit.
I'm not a fan of how the onion sorta sticks around, but that's just what those sulfurous chemicals do.
I'm Singaporean and as a kid I hated the taste of durian due to it being overtly bitter. I acquired the taste by eating durian-flavoured products like durian ice-cream. Since then I've also realised different species of durian have different tastes. I probably won't recommend one of the bitter species to a beginner, haha. Get one of the sweet ones.
Wow interesting! I've never noticed the "onion" taste. I'm in the Philippines and I've had durian fresh, frozen, and as a candy. I would describe the taste as very creamy, rich, and sweet. (To me it doesn't taste like onion or mango; it's just super creamy with a hint of jackfruit.) It does have a strong smell-- to me it's that overripe/rotten sweet fruit kind of smell.
I ate it regularly as a kid but I avoid it now as I think I've gotten more sensitive to smells and also feel like I can't digest it well anymore, it's just so rich and heavy :))
The onion taste might either be the specific kind I have had, or just my way of describing it.
Definitely more on the jackfruit side than mango, actually. Jackfruit happens to be my favourite fruit now and even that smell is too much for some people.
I don’t get to have durian too often because it’s just so expensive compared to other fruit and it’s not always in season.
If you like to see weird fruits, check out weird explorer on YouTube. He’s also looked at some actually nasty fruits like the noni
Oooh, another Weird Explorer fan! I occasionally post his videos here too:
https://tildes.net/~food?tag=weird_explorer
So I definitely second the recommendation. :)
This website is definitely a gathering point for us weirdos into niche things lol
Who you calling a weirdo!? I prefer being called someone with "eclectic taste". ;)
There's also the episode where he reviews sour sop. Again. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h4apvb13mqk
He talks about how it WAS a fruit he loved, until he got massively sick eating one. Then years later he's got a fruit reviewing channel and eventually he had to review it. He turned somewhat green. The experience went downhills from there.
feel free to mark this as noise but i just now realised that i haven't seen a bunch of the old test kitchen people since the whole drama unfolded. there were a few of those like Sohla that i kinda miss watching because i really enjoy their energy.
can anyone give me a quick rundown of it now that the dust (hopefully) has settled? is Sohla with nyt kitchen as a permament gig now/do we know where the others have found homes?
Not noise at all! Offtopic a tiny bit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. But to answer your question, from a previous comment of mine:
And Brad launched his own channel a few weeks ago. See also:
https://tildes.net/?tag=brad_leone
And Rick does an occasional series with Babish.