This is durian.
The name comes from the Malaysian word for thorn, which, yeah, checks out.
The fruit is native to southeast Asia, and Thailand grows more than half a million metric
tons of these weird looking things every year.
And as you might know, it has an odor.
A strong one.
And we’re going to tell you why.
Despite its smell, many people really love the stuff.
In southeast Asia, they call durian the “King of Fruits.”
Alfred Russel Wallace had this to say about durian:
“A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there
are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine,
and other incongruous dishes.
Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses,
but which adds to its delicacy.”
But...that smell.
It may be a beloved treat in southeast Asia, but the smell is strong, to say the least.so
It’s so strong that some hotels, subways and movie theaters ban it.
And you thought cellphones were a problem.
So what does it actually smell like?
At VidCon, we got some our friends at PBS to give it a whiff.
I was guessing hot garbage and I’m met with hot garbage here.
I remember it smelling worse.
I’ve been in markets in Asian where they’ve it and this doesn’t smell as bad as what
I thought it did.
It smells quite fine.
It smells like food garbage that’s been sitting for a couple of days.
Yeah.
Ya know, I thought I’d hate it more, actually.
So why does it smell so... pungent?
Chemists have identified about 45 different molecules that make up durian’s odor.
They cover an impressive variety of smells: honey, roasted onion, caramel, skunk and rotten
egg, to name a few.
Incredibly, a recent study narrowed those down to just two molecules the researchers
say can mimic the fruit’s overall smell.
A whole bunch of the compounds on that list have sulfur atoms in them, some of which can
smell pretty bad.
You know that special stink of rotten eggs?
Yep.
That’s Hydrogen Sulfide.
Humans are insanely good at smelling sulfur-containing molecules.
Your nose is one hundred million times more sensitive to ethanethiol than ethanol.
There’s probably a good evolutionary reason for that.
Rotten food, dead animals, poisonous gases and even the sweat of some carnivorous predators
all have sulfur-containing compounds, so it makes sense natural selection has made us
especially sensitive to them.
Our noses are so good at sniffing out sulfur thanks to what happens between sulfur compounds
and copper ions in our smell receptors.
When scientists blocked copper from the noses of lab mice, they couldn’t tell the difference
between the gross smelling (methylthio)methanethiol from the more pleasant smelling eugenol, which
shows up in cinnamon and basil.
So sulfur helps explain why durian smells so bad to some people.
But why do people put up with that smell?
Sometimes we can forgive a little stinkiness if the food tastes really, really good.
So how does it taste?
The fruity stuff reminds me a little bit of maybe kiwi fruit or something like that.
It’s like a mushy pear or something like that.
If you took an apple and dipped in it in a landfill, and covered it in yogurt, that is
durian.
Frankly I don’t hate it.
I’m going to have some more.
Can’t stop, won’t stop.
You know, it could be an acquired taste.
I hated coffee and chocolate coffee for a really long time.
I don’t think it deserves a bad rap.
It’s fine.
I mean it’s fruit, why are we picking on fruit?
Alright, alright.
We hear you.
But to switch it up, we asked professional chef Parnass Savang, who cooks with durian
and was raised eating it, what he thought it tastes like.
It’s hard to describe because it tastes custardy, it tastes sweet and it has a funkiness
like a fermentation funkiness that other fruits don’t have and that one just sings to me
so much.
So durian is clearly an acquired taste.
But why could some people get over that funkiness while others couldn’t?
Well, not everyone smells or tastes things the same way.
Our DNA has code for roughly 800 odor receptors, though scientists think only about 400 of
those actually function.
Genetic variations in these receptors can change the way they function and alter your
perception of an odor, so you might not smell durian the same way Joe did.
And then there are people who can’t smell it at all.
Seriously.
Maybe that sounds great at first.
But most of what we call flavor isn’t really taste, it’s smell.
They might just be missing out on the true complexity of this exotic delicacy.
Plus the way we react to smells is determined in part by our experiences.
Odors can stir up memories and emotions in people.
So if you grew up eating durian, it might trigger fondness rather than revulsion.
Some cheeses stink to high heaven but people still love cheese.
Or maybe we here in America just aren’t getting good durian.
There are echelons of durian.
There’s some durians that are highly prized where the seeds are small, the meat are large.
And there’s some that are good for transporting and those aren’t always as good.
I think durian is getting a bad rap in the United States because we get crappy durian
from Thailand.
And that, my friends, is the science of a very odorous fruit.
Have you ever had durian?
What’s your verdict on the “king of fruits”?
Let us know in the comments.
I personally think it tastes like a mango and avocado had a baby, and only fed that
baby garlic.
I like it!
Hit thumbs up and subscribe before you head out to find one of these beauties for yourself.
Thanks for watching.