Every country has its dare food. You know, the food that the citizens ask you immediately upon arrival if you’ve tried and if you haven’t they spend ungodly amounts of time trying to get you to eat it, saying such encouraging things like, “It is an acquired taste” and “It is supposed to be an aphrodisiac” and “After you get past the smell, the taste isn’t bad at all”.
While I’m all for cultural sensitivity and blah de blah, sometimes I get tired of dare food. If it was sooooo nice to eat, would you have to talk people into it?
No.
Do you have to talk people into eating chocolate?
I rest my case.
I was recently in a town that is famous for durian. I’ve heard of durian before, famously stinky fruit that is banned from hotels, planes, the like. But I’ve never eaten it nor smelled it before.
Nothing like being in a town famous for its durian during a festival for getting a right-on introduction.
We had just finished a feast of seafood. I’m being more adventurous in general in my eating. I’ve never thought of myself as overly picky, but some things… Squid and octopus have always icked me out for reasons I can’t explain. The shape or that they are described as chewy or that we used to dissect squid in science class or the weird globular balloon that is the head of the octopus but they have a beak… I don’t know why, but squid and octopus have always equalled don’t eat in my book. Also, don’t eat heads of things. It is impolite.
So the table had a spread of shellfish soup, fried tail of tuna, boiled head of tuna, kinilaw (the tuna belly in cubes with a sauce of vinegar, calamansi, and salt and some cut up cucumber and some random white vegetable), squid cooked in its own ink and noodles with squid and prawns. I’ve always said that I don’t like seafood. And really, in the main, I don’t. However, you aren’t getting away with not eating seafood here.
Side note: one of my dining companions, as I was eating a bit of plain rice, asked me if I’d become accustomed to eating rice. I kind of blinked at her and said, ummm, we have rice in the States. Yes, but you eat bread. Yes, but we also eat rice. The funny part about this is that bread is readily available here and there has been a strong American presence for ages. I’m sure she’s seen Americans eat rice before.
Anyway, so I take a bit of everything. Fried tail? Good. Noodles? Good. Kinilaw? Quickly becoming my favorite. Squid in ink? Totally yummy. A smoky flavor was added to the squid making the chewiness kind of nice. The head of the tuna?
Well, I didnt’ take the eyeball.
But, when asked if I wanted some I did say, “Is there any cheek left?”
Which for most of the world may not sound weird. But for someone who grew up wondering where the ‘meat’ part of the animal was on the anatomy charts (you can see the muscle and bone clearly, but where is the meat?), that was a leap into adventure, my friends!
Anyway, after dinner everyone is all, DURIAN PARTY!!!
yay!(?)
And luckily for us, the restaurant we ate at was right in front of Durian Park. It was a tent set up with tables underneath and mountains of durian. You could smell the durian when you were still relatively far from the tent. For those who haven’t smelled it…. It is a very sharp smell. Kind of ammonia-ny. Kind of garlic-y. Kind of rotten. The fruit itself is the size of a honeydew, with wicked spikes coming out from all directions. This is a warning from the durian. Don’t touch me! I’ll hurt you!
No one listens to the wise warning of the durian.
But everyone in my party is all, oh it smells terrible but the taste! The taste is heaven! The head of our party goes to get what ends up being four durian for our table of seven. That’s a lot of durian. Two people don’t eat it at all (the two most eager to watch me eat it, by the way. horrible) and the others just start tucking in. Durian pods have an outer skin and the inside meat is rather soft and creamy. They tell me not to smell it, to just eat it. So I try to put it in my mouth without smelling it. Try that with food sometime. Just put it in your mouth but don’t smell it. Nigh on impossible. Unless you do as I do and tilt your head back and drop it in. This may then cause raucous laughter at the table but ignore them. They are just jealous.
So I tried two different varieties of durian.
I don’t get it.
Apparently, had I tried it a third time, then I would have gotten the bug and been all, durian rocks!
As it is, the texture is similar to eating a very well toasted marshmallow, with the tougher outer skin and the very creamy center. The taste is rather bitter/garlic/blech. If it were sweet, with that texture, it would be quite something I think. But the taste…
Also, all the tables had bottles of coke on them. I was asking about that. Apparently, you need to have a coke chaser with durian to fully appreciate the flavor. Durian is better with coke.
Yeah, right.
They are just killing the taste.
So after the durian party, people were all, you should eat balut! I made the reasoned argument that one dare food per day is quite enough.
Balut, for the unintitiated, are duck eggs that have been allowed to slightly form into little ducks then buried. One of my friends, who quite enjoys them, told me it is like eating creamy meat. As long as you don’t get the ones that were removed too late because then they have little beaks and feathers and that doesn’t taste nice.
Creamy meat certainly doesn’t sound good.
However, I was spared from finding out because we had to get home.
Next day at dinner, one girl (who distinctly did NOT eat the durian) was making fun of my lack of balut and timidity with the durian. She then pointed to a bowl of chicken feet and was all, try some! They are delicious. but with a look that is all, you won’t eat chicken feet! What choice did I have??? I popped the scaly leathery looking suckers in my mouth and sucked the flesh from the bones, delicately spitting the bones out. The look is far far worse than the taste and the taste is mainly of the sauce they were cooked in and the fat. Not a whole lot of meat. I’ve eaten worse tasting things. But I’d certainly not make a point of eating chicken feet again. Why when there are so many nice things out there?
Tags: durian, tasty food
