All Hail the Beautiful, delightful, sensuous, life-enhancing
Durian.
To me this fruit is a little piece of Tropical Paradise;
whether it is shared in a park in England, by the roadside in Indonesia or in a
side street of Chinatown in Brisbane.
To me sharing is more
important than location. I have never really enjoyed feasting alone on one of
these beauties. Somehow something seems missing, the edge is taken off, the
splendour is slightly dulled. However
when shared with friends or family then the taste and aroma waft one up to
heaven.
My eleven month old baby has been adoring them since before
he could crawl, guess what he will be having for his Birthday cake?
A Durian plus one
candle. A pretty amazing Birthday experience, all natural, healthy and wise.
And so to the smell; I think 'smell' is almost a little tame
to describe what floats out of a Durian's pores. I love it! The first time I
smelt it, even before even a tiny taste had crossed my lips, I was smitten, in
love with its fantastically sweet and delicious eminations. So much so that the
shirt that it came wrapped in, I took to bed with me for the next three nights.
Then came the puzzlement... 'How can anyone find this smell
offensive ..like drains... like putrifying flesh...?
Are they crazy?... Or is it I? brain crazed from this
wonderful experience! I nearly gave myself a headache trying to figure out how
the smell could be anything other than Sweety pie. So I have to figure that - "Smell is in
the nose of the beholder."
To many fruit eaters,
fruitarians and fruit lovers the smell is Beautiful and special. Whilst to those whose diet is made up of
other things, while they may delight in the rotting smell of mouldy blue cheese
or heated flesh, they escape the delights of that lovely Durian smell that
fruit eaters are blessed enough to appreciate.
So All Hail the Happiness of sharing a Durian, thank you to
the trees, the growers and the sellers that we mortals may taste the little bit
of heaven and joy that comes enclosed in all those thorns.
