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Eating Durian
By Peace | December 13, 2007
The good durian should have a rich aroma, a silky-smooth flesh texture, succulent but firm flesh and a perfect mix of bitter and sweet tastes. The best quality fruit are the pedigree breeds from Malaysia and Thailand, cultivated specifically to obtain the desired taste and quality. Nameless durians, which are not cultivated specifically for quality and taste, cost less and their standard may vary. Some may rival the best, with the same enchanting aroma and voluptuous flesh, while others taste plain bad. For a guaranteed top-notch durian, it is always safer to buy a “branded durian”.
Durians mature in 3 -5 months from the time of fruit-set. They are highly perishable. Durians are fully ripe 2 to 4 days after falling and lose eating quality in 5 or 6 days.In rural areas, villagers usually build grass huts nearby at harvest time and camp there for 6 or 8 weeks in order to be ready to collect each fruit as soon as it falls. Caution is necessary when approaching a durian tree during the ripening season, for the falling fruits can cause serious injury. Hunters place traps in the surrounding area because the fallen fruits attract game animals and all kinds of birds. The fruit is also placed as bait for game in the forests.
There are over 80,000 phytonutrients found in durian.
The durian is attractive to a great variety of animals and insects as well as people, including monkeys, gibbons, orangutans, and apes, birds, dogs, pigs, rhinoceros, bears, squirrels, tapirs, deer, elephants, tigers, and even the domestic cat. Durians are sold whole, or cut open and divided into segments, which are wrapped in clear plastic. The flesh is mostly eaten fresh, often out-of-hand. It is best after being well chilled in a refrigerator. Sometimes it is simply boiled with sugar or cooked in coconut water, and it is a popular flavoring for ice cream. Javanese prepare the flesh as a sauce to be served with rice; they also combine the minced flesh with minced onion, salt and diluted vinegar as a kind of relish. Arabian residents prefer to mix the flesh with ice and syrup. In Palembang, the flesh is fermented in earthen pots, sometimes smoked, and eaten as a special side dish.
Durian seeds are believed to possess a toxic property that causes shortness of breath. However, they are eaten after boiling, drying, and frying or roasting. In Java, the seeds may be sliced thin and cooked with sugar as a confection; or dried and fried in coconut oil with spices for serving as a side-dish.
The Medicinal Uses of Durian includes: The flesh is said to serve as a vermifuge. In Malaya, a decoction of the leaves and roots is prescribed as a febrifuge. The leaf juice is applied on the head of a fever patient. The leaves are employed in medicinal baths for people with jaundice. Decoctions of the leaves and fruits are applied to swellings and skin diseases. The ash of the burned rind is taken after childbirth. The leaves probably contain hydroxy-tryptamines and mustard oils. In addition, the odor of the flesh is believed to be linked to indole compounds which are bacteriostatic. Eating durian is alleged to restore the health of ailing humans and animals. The flesh is widely believed to act as an aphrodisiac.
How To Grow Durian
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