When a Man Loves Durian - Medan Durians in Jakarta

King of Fruits. Few things in the world claim and relish such titles. For Budweiser to consider their factory-made swill the King of Beers is both a travesty to the title and a dilution of its significance. The world of fruit is vast and varied, spanning every known culture and continent (with perhaps the exception of the icy South Pole's Antarctica). Very close to the belly line of the world lies the potential for the world's finest fruit, the bedazzling and intriguing spiky fellow whose odd rugby shape and interminable stench precedes its reputation.



Durian. Just the word itself conjures up thoughts of bliss or horror. A man approaching you with a gaggle of durians have you fooled as a flesh-dealing zombie or an epicure of the highest order.

Much like the way pain and pleasure are inevitably linked to human sensation, so the indelible aroma of a durian either delights or dismays the olfactory. And to complete the cycle, the incredible flavor of the durian straddles the far reaches of human comprehension with its mystifying complexity and guttural textures.

I say complex because once one tastes the flavor of a durian from the Indonesian province of Medan, then one begins to understand the true power of this fruit. Those of us in this part of the globe may have the unfortunate chance of tasting mere shadows of durian through its meager paste or perhaps in the form of a shake in a forlorn boba joint in San Gabriel. Maybe we've seen those packages of durian ice cream, dusted with a heavy dose of frost from months, or even years of neglect.



To even hint that these resemble the real McCoy is both completely off the mark and frankly, inferior. There is no equal to the perfectly ripe durian, carved by the able hands of a street sales man, and consumed with the greatest utensils the Lord created for such a task: your fingers.

While cruising the streets of Jakarta, we stumbled upon a good number of these durian carts, hawking the spiky oblongs for about $3 each, a princely sum considering the purchasing power of those tres dolares in Indonesia. I'd easily pay $13 for these durians in LA.

Pulling over on the busy street, we crawled out of our vehicle and huddled over the cart, illuminated by icy blue fluorescent bulbs. The interesting thing about these carts is that there is no discernible smell from the durians. It's nothing unpleasant, but rather a light fragrance. It serves only to whet the deepest throes of your appetite, much like the imaginary pheromones of an impending lover.

The first bite might either be glorious or heavenly or both. I'm handed a palm-sized orb of the light-yellow flesh, which covers a single ping-pong sized seed. In nature, these seeds are consumed in tandem to the Siren-like durian flesh, calling upon monkeys and other creatures to spread its posterity to far reaches (through unseemly methods we shall not discuss). For hedonists such as myself, the seeds call to be suckled upon, all the better to wrangle off every bit of the sweet, custardy flesh.



The flavor! It's ineffable, like the sweetest dream interrupted and forgetten by a rude awakening. I think of almonds, gently roasted and pureed. Also light honey, un-tart mangoes, avocado, maybe even passion. In these superior Medan durians, there is next to zero of the gasoline-like disgust that I encountered in my first durian experience.

If you ever have the chance to get Medan durians in Indonesia, your foodie life will be just a little bit more complete.