It smells like old socks, but durian is delicious

By Emma Hogan

The durian, if you are not acquainted with it, is a pungent fruit which on the outside looks like a cross between a giant kiwi fruit and a hedgehog. Inside the yellow flesh resembles a decayed kidney and smells like rotting rubbish. Its smell has got it banned from hotels, carry-on luggage and subway systems in Singapore; the sign proscribing it looks as if the city-state has outlawed spiky hand-grenades or a particularly pernicious whoopee cushion.

I moved to South-East Asia three months ago. In my second week, I went with two new Singaporean friends to Geylang, the red-light district, where we sat on rickety plastic chairs at a roadside stall, scooping out creamy durian flesh (which tastes like a combination of almonds, brandy and sour buttermilk) while wearing plastic gloves to stop ourselves stinking of the fruit. A few weeks later we ditched dinner and went straight to another stall instead. While staying in Indonesia I tried to go to an all-you-can-eat durian festival in Bandung, in West Java, but got stuck in traffic and by the time I got there the nectar had sold out. An oncologist friend of mine, knowing how much I like the stuff, now invites me over to eat the durians given to him by grateful patients.