Thursday 28 May 2009

Durian : the inside story

After getting so many tips from my readers ( thanks everyone !)
I donned a pair of leather gloves and split the durian along the seams.


The insides reveal soft fruity nobs.


They taste very good, with a flavor that does not compare to anything else, nutty with hints of pineapple and banana and a soft texture like a very ripe banana .
The seeds inside are not very large , so you get quite a lot of fruit.
The hard part is stopping yourself from eating it all straightaway !

Kept inside a plastic container in the fridge , they'll keep for at least 4 days.
I haven't cooked the seeds yet, but I have drunk water from the hard shell in the traditional way : it picks up a little flavour from the inside : not bad.


I can understand why Malaysians go gaga about this fruit, it's very tasty.

6 comments:

Priscilla said...

Mmmmm that looks good! :D I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Walter said...

Oh it was. Next time I see one in the shop I'll buy two of them ;)

ihsara said...

wow you ate durian?!!??

I'm not a big fan of durian haha (its too pungent!) something about the taste of the flesh reminds me of something chemical-ish :S..

careful, don't eat too much! it'll make you "heaty"...

Walter said...

Hi Ihsara,
I liked the flesh of the Durian very much, it's soft and creamy and has an incomparable taste , although I did notice an slight alcoholic vapor that seemed to make me a bit short of breath ( almost like alcohol or white spirit, but much less strong)
After packing the fleshy nobs in the refrigerator and eating them the next days, I didn't notice it anymore.
Even after eating half the flesh the first day , I didn't get hot.
I also drank wine right after ( I only found out later this is believed to be a deadly mix ?! ) but I didn't notice a thing.

But that could only be true for me.

I know that many Asians have problems digesting alcohol ( alcohol gets converted in basically two steps : to aldehyde in the liver , by the enzyme ADH , which gets further converted by your liver to acetic acid , by the enzyme ALDH.
( They're actually isozymes, but that's getting too technical )
Here's the bad news : aldehyde is a toxic substance : it's a carcinogenic .
If you're ALDH deficient , you'll get 'Asian flush' when drinking alcohol because the aldehyde doesn't get converted at the normal rate.
Some people are even worse : their ALDH isozyme still works , but at a reduced rate : they can 'tolerate' alcohol . The bad news is, the aldehyde gets converted more slowly and they run high risk of getting cancer.

Read more about it here : http://www.blisstree.com/geneticsandhealth/alcohol-flush-increases-cancer-risk-in-asia/

Am I safe ? NO. Drinking alcohol still produces aldehyde and every time I do, it could produce cancer. I only have much less chance of getting it.

As for combining durian and alcohol , hm..
I can't find any medical reports on the net that this is so.
But I did find this : http://medicine.com.my/wp/?p=3629
It's like that other Urban Myth that is (was) so popular here : Baileys followed by drinking coke or tonic or 7 up will kill you because it solidifies in the stomach . HAha!
It doesn't.
I have read that it can make your stomach ache, because allegedly the acid in the drinks will make the cream in the Baileys form clots in your stomach ( you're making curdled milk ) : you can also try this with milk and tonic.
Again, I think it's a lot of nonsense : your stomach acid will curdle milk ( or Baileys cream) anyway !

ihsara said...

Hey walter!

Hahaha alcoholdehydrogenase! I did that last year for my labs, absolutely no fun at all =_=..

Thats true, Asians do have a mutation in ADH (or in my case I bet have no ADH at all :P) and that alcohol is a carcinogen.. hence my giving up of alcohol!

About that heaty stuff, its not that your body actually gets hot :P (haha this is going to be confusing but i will attempt to explain!)

In chinese beliefs, we believe certain foods have certain properties: hot, cold and neutral (yin, yang, and neutral?).

If you eat too much of a hot or cold property, it disturbs the balance in your body, thus making you easier to fall sick.

Thats why they say having too much durian will make you 'heaty' and usually more prone to getting mouth ulcers, sorethroats and feeling feverish or just falling sick heheh..

ihsara said...

ooh fun fact

i forgot even alcohol has properties!

apparently whiskey is a 'cooling' drink. so is beer and stuff from grains.

brandy (and probably wine since they come from the same fruit) is a 'heaty' one. maybe thats why its such a big no-no with the durians.