There was one in that film (the huge globular spiny thing that he kissed when it was on the tree) that looked just like a fruit I saw in the 99 Ranch store in Lake Elsinore, CA, when I was out there a couple of years ago. The Burmese I was with all said that it is so smelly and revolting when opened that there are signs on the buses in Yangon warning people not to open one on the bus.
Couldn’t have been that he was admiring.
This! They look so beautiful, even more so when cut, but the taste is no better than ok. We’ve started seeing red-fleshed ones as well as the ones with white flesh, but they all taste like a so-so kiwi fruit.
That would be Durian. I’ve tried to eat it (from a produce stall in New York City) but could not bring myself to get it past my nose into my mouth. To me it smelled like vomit and sewage. My daughter had no problem and kinda liked it.
Yeah, it seems to affect everybody differently. So, in Myanmar they have just banned them from buses.
I’ve had it in a smoothie. Taste-wise it was weird, kind of interesting but the fruit has a vapor kind of thing going on. Imagine wasabi, but instead of spice its the pervasive stench. I kept burping up the durian hours after i took a few sips and it was… an experience.
This guy does pretty cool fruit explorer videos.
He’s a South Florida landmark and a genuinely nice person. I used to stop there every year on the way back from an annual houseboat fishing trip in the Everglades national park.
About 15 years ago my wife (who is half Filipina) asked me to pick up some certain fruits and VERY green unhusked coconuts at a certain stage of ripeness for a Filipino dish she wanted to cook. I bought everything on her list and just grabbed the coconuts without checking.
When I got home, the coconuts were all wrong. One was far too ripe, the rest were dry of juices.
The next year I went back with the admonition to double check. So I was sitting next to the rack with green coconuts, shaking them and trying to determine how much fluid they contained, and I mentioned to my fishing buddy that last year I got it wrong and all the coconuts were unusable.
Unbeknownst to me, the middle-aged gentleman across the aisle was in fact, Robert himself. He came over, introduced himself, explained that he had overheard and asked if I needed help. He helped me pick the coconuts out and then called one of the employees to tell the cashier that when I checked out, that the coconuts were on the house, since they were bad last year. I explained that they weren’t bad, just that I had chosen wrong, but he still insisted.
The coconuts were perfect. Just the right amount of fluid in them and the meat was just slightly firm but still gelatinous.
If you’re ever down that way I highly recommend visiting. It’s part of a dying culture in Florida. See it while you can.
It’s getting easier to find in pretty much any city with a large Asian population. The grocery stores around me sell it in thick watermelon-like slices that are much more manageable. I love the sweet, tropical fruit “pods” around its seeds.
My favorite grocery store on earth and the best thing about Cincinnati.
I picked up a whole frozen durian from an Asian market and was surprised how mild its funky scent was; there was a whiff of that telltale rotten-fruit smell, but the fruit was so sweet and delicious that I didn’t mind. But I woke up the next day and the remnants in the trash had gotten so nasty that it smelled like a garbage truck had backed up into my kitchen.
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