The League of Extraordinary Gastronomes in SEA pt1

This short trip has been somewhat of a culinary adventure for our taste buds. I’ve complained about it enough by now that you should know what a task it is for vegetarians in China so you can imagine how much I’ve enjoyed simply choosing the already labeled vegetarian option, or just browsing through the menu counting how many 'no-meat' dishes there are. I also have enjoyed not having to send my dish back three times before I reluctantly resign myself to the painstaking process of trying to get the one teaspoon of ground pork out of my noodles or just forgoing the dish all-together (have I told you how many times I’ve been informed ‘pork’ isn’t really ‘meat’ anyway?).

Before we left China, one of our teachers told us to be very careful of the food in Vietnam because they eat their greens raw. Everything is still washed mind you, but Chinese believe you must cook everything or it will make you sick. Hence vegetable juice shops don’t do well in our city. Someone else informed us that we’ll surely get sick because Vietnamese and Cambodians don’t eat much meat -- they’re too poor. I reason that Vietnamese have less heart disease than Chinese. Poor little me.

I love that when you order most dishes in Vietnam, they come with a an extra side of un-cooked greens -- some that my friendly market people have told me are poisonous unless cooked. I love the abundance of fragrant smelling herbs such as lemongrass and basil that Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand use abundantly. I love that they judge the smell of the dish just as much as the taste. I love the extravagant use of coconut in everything. I love that they don’t consider it necessary to use every part of the animal either, resulting in some very strange looking and smelling dishes. I will admit it -- I prefer Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai cooking to Chinese any day.

So during this time, we -- or rather I should say I -- decided Jason needed to broaden his taste bud horizon and try the infamous king of all fruits, much beloved by Southeast Asians everywhere...the Durian. Now I suppose you should try something at least twice before you pronounce it completely unpalatable and I myself have tried the fruit, the lollie (candy) and the ice cream so I believe that gives me every right to declare how vehemently I dislike -- ok hate -- durian. Here’s the famous sales pitch for durian: Smells like Hell, tastes like Heaven. I'm not kidding -- that's what everyone says. That's literally how they introduce it to you too: "This is durian. It smells like Hell and tastes like Heaven -- here try some!" Uhg. No thanks.

My Thai friend and all other Southeast Asians I’ve met as well as Chinese, all agree that it smells like a combination of onion and sour milk but what I can’t understand is that they love this stuff! Not only do I dislike the taste, but I can’t handle the slimy texture. If I were God, I’d have made durian the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because surely no one in their right mind would have been tempted to eat it. While it looks quite intriguing, the fact that its covered with large, sharp points should deter people from eating let alone the repulsive smell of rotting onions. You mean to tell me that a little jungle man walked through the jungle and thought: Gee I’m really hungry. How about I eat this really dangerous looking fruit that could actually kill me if it drops on my head? It really can’t taste as bad as it smells.

A durian smells so bad, that all the buses, hotels, and airports have huge NO DURIAN signs on all their doors.

So being that not trying durian would be missing a major part of the Asian experience for Jason, I told him at some point, he was going to have to give the stuff a go. My Thai friend is convinced that Thai durian is superior to Chinese durian so I conceded that he could wait till we got to Thailand to try it. So first day, our Thai friend picked out a special dish -- which I think was cheating cause I tried durian straight the first time -- and unfortunately I didn’t have the video camera on my for this momentous occasion so the photos will have to suffice. It did take him a full five minutes of psyching himself up to try it as the smell was enough to turn his stomach (mine too) but he pulled up his boot straps and sucked it down and felt ill for the rest of the day but he did it! Much to our poor Thai friend’s disappointment, he swears he will not be giving it a second try, not disguised any which way.

Ok, I know he's smiling but seriously, he isn't enjoying this at all. He smiles all the time. Just look at his primary school report cards.

And lets just say that there’s a good amount of teeth brushing and gum chewing that has to go on for several hours after one has consumed durian before they can expect their friends, let alone their wife, to come within 3 feet of them again…