The King of Fruits

Last night James Chan, the work associate that brought Steve to Singapore, took us to try the "durian challenge". Durian, which is the called the king of fruits, is hard to describe, but I will do my best. First of all, you must know that durian is not allowed in hotels, on airplanes and trains, or any other enclosed space. We had to walk about two or three blocks from the train station to get to the nearest fruit market. We were not quite halfway there when we could smell what seemed like a locker of fruit had been left in the sun for a week, before being opened for our smelling pleasure.As we approached the market there were piles of spiky cantaloupe sized durian for sale. The unfriendly exterior shouts, "Keep your distance!" and, once opened, the smell confirms the warning. I watched as a shopkeeper split open the hard covering by hammering and hacking at it with a small cleaver. By the time our purchase was placed in front of us on our street side table we were completely immersed in the scent of the durian, which could turn your stomach, but then it would start to smell of strawberries and then it seemed okay.
James gave an eating demonstration and then I took the challenge. I have an extremely sensitive shnozz, but in the spirit of the moment I dug right in. As I picked up one of the fruit covered seeds from the spiny husk, my fingers sunk in as if it were soft ice cream. I took a bite and the pudding-like flesh seemed to expand to fill my mouth, and nearly took my breath away. It took me a minute or so to begin to swallow and as I did so I ended up with a fibrous mass in my mouth that I suppose I was to swallow, but could not bring myself to do so. I really cannot describe the taste, although it had a bit of heat, similar to black pepper. The aftertaste was neither as overwhelming as the horrible smell nor as nauseating as the oral sensation, so I finished off my portion with another mouthful to complete the challenge. By the time the others had tried it, I began to feel a fire in my belly, just as if I had eaten very spicy food. James explained that durian is a hot fruit, and we would need to cool down with some cool fruit. We proceeded to eat some delicious jackfruit, watermelon, mango, and pineapple.
We all smelled of durian throughout the evening and awoke to durian morning breath. It's pretty bad when you can smell your own stink. We were allowed on the airplane to Bangkok, so I guess I'm not as bad as as I smell.