Trendy durian
When we got to China, we heard about this fruit, durian, and its polarizing effect. You either like it or you hate it. It has a distinctive smell, for sure; it smells like…it’s hard to describe. I think it smells like a cross between a dirty bathroom and feet. And onions. Kim can’t quite put words to it. She just wrinkles her nose every time we pass it in the grocery store or on a street cart.
We’ve seen it everywhere. Our friend here, Jay, remarked that the Chinese are trying to make it trendy by putting it on or in everything. We’ve seen durian pizza, freeze-dried durian snack bites, durian chips, roasted durian, durian cheese and yogurt and even durian Blizzards at the Dairy Queen in the mall near our apartment. It’s all around us!
Dipping a toe into the unknown
I had to try it. We were at Dairy Queen one evening to satisfy our sweet teeth. I had been ordering safe flavors the past two times we had been there: chocolate, matcha green tea… and it was time. I bravely and ignorantly pointed to “durian” on the menu and ordered a small Blizzard. Kim and Aubrie looked on with mixed reactions that ranged from disgust to shock and horror. We had no idea what I was getting us into.
The tiny Blizzard looked delicious from afar. From far enough away that you couldn’t smell it. It appeared creamy and ever so slightly orange-ish white and looked like it might taste like caramel or butterscotch. Its essence would suggest otherwise! This thing smelled like a mix of candy and the old gym socks you forgot in the corner of your locker at the YMCA. It smelled like sugar-coated onions.
It reminded me of tacos: sometimes I smell tacos and I think they smell like body odor. Conversely, sometimes body odor smells like tacos, if only for that split second when you forget you are on a subway car and are nowhere near a kitchen that is preparing tacos. I hurried to take a bite, thinking that maybe with a smell like that, the taste could not be THAT bad.
I am sometimes wrong…and this was one of those times
The pieces of dried durian had a French’s French fried onion-type of texture. They did have a complex flavor and from what I’ve read, the fruit itself straddles the line of sweet and savory. At first it tasted like onion and then toward the end of the chewing, like right before the pieces got stuck in my molars, it tasted a little sweet. An added bonus was the vanilla soft serve enveloped the tiny bits of dried fruit and helped me chew and swallow.
Spoonful after spoonful was an initial onion assault followed by a sweet/tart finish. I ate the whole thing because I don’t like to waste food, albeit food that would give me hours of really strong burps later. These burps were territorial, too. I would burp in one room and walk away; not only would this burp linger. It would follow me to my new room and hang out there too. I’ve said it already but I’ll say it again: I’m sorry Kim and Aubs! This was my first and last durian Blizzard.
Stay tuned for durian pizza!