A good durian should not smell bad. A mishandled or past-prime durian will indeed smell bad, but a ripe, sealed one should smell about how it tastes. It is a strong aroma, but it shouldn’t smell fermented. Unfortunately there’s a lot of bad durian for sale in some places.
Maybe a lot of this is to do with the fact that they probably have a short shelf life and industrial agriculture wants to ship things like this half way around the world. A friend in Thailand who is rewilding his land lives in a durian desert. Everything has literally been bulldozed and wall to wall orchards of durian trees are planted and then sprayed routinely with insecticides. There’s very little pollinators left and so now their orchards are simply failing.
Yeah, industrial agriculture will turn anything, no matter how joyful, into a source of misery. The kind of thing you describe is textbook neoliberalism, pushed by either friendly governments or global institutions like the World Bank & IMF: countries must focus on their “competitive advantages” in order to generate as much cash as possible. No consideration whatsoever is given to the long or even medium term viability of this approach, nor of the secondary consequences, like food insecurity & ecological collapse.
I have tried about half of the things in the list and agree about those that I tried!
May I add marinated white anchovies - I can eat a loaf of crusty bread with those things!
Oh that’s a good one!
You forgot to mention that durian smells like ass.
You have to get over that smell so it takes a few times of desperately trying before it can be enjoyed. (At least for the one's I tried in Singapore).
A good durian should not smell bad. A mishandled or past-prime durian will indeed smell bad, but a ripe, sealed one should smell about how it tastes. It is a strong aroma, but it shouldn’t smell fermented. Unfortunately there’s a lot of bad durian for sale in some places.
Maybe a lot of this is to do with the fact that they probably have a short shelf life and industrial agriculture wants to ship things like this half way around the world. A friend in Thailand who is rewilding his land lives in a durian desert. Everything has literally been bulldozed and wall to wall orchards of durian trees are planted and then sprayed routinely with insecticides. There’s very little pollinators left and so now their orchards are simply failing.
Good to see all your Filipino inclusions!!
Yeah, industrial agriculture will turn anything, no matter how joyful, into a source of misery. The kind of thing you describe is textbook neoliberalism, pushed by either friendly governments or global institutions like the World Bank & IMF: countries must focus on their “competitive advantages” in order to generate as much cash as possible. No consideration whatsoever is given to the long or even medium term viability of this approach, nor of the secondary consequences, like food insecurity & ecological collapse.
Yep. Exactly.
I wish everyone could have the joy of eating straight from a tree