Sunday, August 29, 2010

King of fruits *burp*

I thought I should write a tribute to the fabulously unique King of Fruits, a.k.a. the Durian! You either love it or loathe it!

Durian from Kung Kung's house

Kung Kung Paul has a durian tree at home, which he brought back as a seedling many years ago from Terengganu. It is apparently a Thai breed and I can attest to it's superior genetic make-up, because it's fruit is a beautiful yellow, with thick, sweet, rich, creamy, mind-blowingly delicious flesh! I have never bought any durian in Kuching which tastes as good as Kung Kung's. Thus, this tree is understandably famous, and dare I say legendary, among those who have tried it's fruit! So much so that I don't bother with other durians in the market, because they are never as nice and are not at all worth the calories and the stinky breath which results (and not to mention the other noxious bodily gases!).


Rich, creamy goodness!

The only time I have eaten durian which tastes as good is when I was with Hubby at KL, on the road, what's the name, the one behind Lot 10? Where there are plenty of durian stalls (during durian season) selling branded durians by weight! We had one called "Wang Shan Wang" or something like that which cost RM100+ for just one durian! It was expensive alright, but really good!

I forgot to take a photo of the fruit in it's shell, and durian season is over, so I took this off the net, for the benefit of those poor deprived souls who have never seen the inside of a durian! :)

Kung Kung's tree is huge, around 3 stories high, but is now really old and not producing as many durians as it used to in it's heyday. During the peak of it's career, some 4-5 years ago, the faithful tree could produce as many as 200 durians in a single season! Now it only produces less than a 100. Efforts are being made to graft the tree to make new seedlings, but have so far been unsuccessful. We tried planting from the seed, but it resulted in a tree which produces durians of a different quality, whiter and thinner flesh, with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Anyway, when the tree was performing at it's very best, that was the couple of consecutive years I was pregnant with Claire, then Eva. My due dates for both of them were in the middle of the year, right smack in the middle of durian season! Thus, during my last months of pregnancy, I had durian every single day! There was always at least two containers of fresh durian in the refrigerator, it was like yummy durian ice-cream! It's no wonder I gained around 20kg per pregnancy!! :)

Well, I sure hope the good ol' durian tree has many more good years left in it!

So what are you? A durian lover or hater?
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