Alfred Wallace of Darwin-Wallace fame on the durian.
"When brought into a house the smell is often so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian eater," he writes. Having declared the taste almost impossible to describe, he offers "a rich butter-like custard, highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities".
I found that each durian has a unique taste. The ideal fruit for those who are easily bored. There is nothing else like it.
I loved the smell right from the beginning. I even kept one in my room as an air freshener. Others find it so intolerably nauseating that durians are banned on public transport and in hotels. The human race splits about 50/50 on this. Genetics don't matter. It's a mystery.
On the other hand I never liked jackfruit, which is also covered with thorns and is about as large as a small beer keg. I recently saw a jackfruit in a local supermarket in the US, which was a big surprise.
