Culinary
Durian fruit is used to flavour a wide variety of sweet edibles such as traditional Malay candy,
ice kacang,
dodol, rose biscuits, and, with a touch of modern innovation,
ice cream,
milkshakes,
mooncakes,
Yule logs and
cappuccino. Pulut Durian is
glutinous rice steamed with
coconut milk and served with ripened durian. In
Sabah, red durian is fried with onions and chilli and served as a side dish.
Red-fleshed durian is traditionally added to
sayur, an Indonesian soup made from fresh water fish.
Ikan brengkes is fish cooked in a durian-based sauce, traditional in
Sumatra.
Tempoyak refers to
fermented durian, usually made from lower quality durian that is unsuitable for direct consumption.
Tempoyak can be eaten either cooked or uncooked, is normally eaten with rice, and can also be used for making
curry. Sambal Tempoyak is a
Sumatran dish made from the fermented durian fruit, coconut milk, and a collection of spicy ingredients known as
sambal.
In Thailand, blocks of durian paste are sold in the markets, though much of the paste is
adulterated with
pumpkin.
Unripe durians may be cooked as a vegetable, except in the Philippines, where all uses are sweet rather than savoury. Malaysians make both sugared and salted preserves from durian. When durian is minced with salt, onions and vinegar, it is called
boder. The durian seeds, which are the size of chestnuts, can be eaten whether they are boiled, roasted or fried in
coconut oil, with a texture that is similar to
taro or
yam, but stickier. In
Java, the seeds are sliced thin and cooked with sugar as a confection. Uncooked durian seeds are toxic due to
cyclopropene fatty acids and should not be ingested.
Young leaves and
shoots of the durian are occasionally cooked as
greens. Sometimes the ash of the burned
rind is added to special cakes.
The petals of durian flowers are eaten in the
North Sumatra province of Indonesia, while in the
Moluccas islands the husk of the durian fruit is used as fuel to
smoke fish. The nectar and pollen of the durian flower that honeybees collect is an important
honey source, but the characteristics of the honey are unknown.
Nutritional and medicinal
Durian fruit contains a high amount of
sugar,
vitamin C,
potassium, and the
serotonergic amino acid
tryptophan,
and is a good source of
carbohydrates,
proteins, and
fats.
It is recommended as a good source of raw fats by several
raw food advocates,
while others classify it as a
high-glycemic food, recommending to minimise its consumption.
The rich
estrogens of the durian may increase fertility in women.
In Malaysia, a
decoction of the leaves and roots used to be prescribed as an
antipyretic. The leaf juice is applied on the head of a fever patient.
The most complete description of the medicinal use of the durian as remedies for fevers is a Malay prescription, collected by Burkill and Haniff in 1930. It instructs the reader to boil the roots of
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis with the roots of
Durio zibethinus,
Nephelium longan,
Nephelium mutabile and
Artocarpus integrifolia, and drink the decoction or use it as a
poultice.
In the 1920s, Durian Fruit Products, Inc., of New York City launched a product called "Dur-India" as a health food supplement, selling at
US$9 for a dozen bottles, each containing 63 tablets. The tablets allegedly contained durian and a species of the genus
Allium from India and
vitamin E. The company promoted the supplement saying that it provides "more concentrated healthful energy in food form than any other product the world affords".
Customs and beliefs
Southeast Asian folk beliefs, as well as
traditional Chinese medicine, consider the durian fruit to have warming properties liable to cause
excessive sweating.
The traditional method to counteract this is to pour water into the empty shell of the fruit after the pulp has been consumed and drink it.
An alternative method is to eat the durian in accompaniment with
mangosteen, which is considered to have cooling properties. Pregnant women or people with
high blood pressure are traditionally advised not to consume durian.
Another common local belief is that the durian is harmful when eaten with
coffee or alcoholic beverages.
The latter belief can be traced back at least to the 18th century when
Rumphius stated that one should not drink alcohol after eating durians as it will cause indigestion and
bad breath. In 1929, J. D. Gimlette wrote in his
Malay Poisons and Charm Cures that the durian fruit must not be eaten with
brandy. In 1981, J. R. Croft wrote in his
Bombacaceae: In Handbooks of the Flora of Papua New Guinea that "a feeling of morbidity" often follows the consumption of alcohol too soon after eating durian. Several medical investigations on the validity of this belief have been conducted with varying conclusions,
though a study by the
University of Tsukuba finds the fruit's high sulphur content caused the body to inhibit the activity of
aldehyde dehydrogenase, causing a 70% reduction of the ability to clear toxins from the body.
The
Javanese believe durian to have
aphrodisiac qualities, and impose a set of rules on what may or may not be consumed with it or shortly thereafter.
A saying in
Indonesian,
durian jatuh sarung naik, meaning "the durians fall and the
sarongs come up", refers to this belief.
The warnings against the supposed lecherous quality of this fruit soon spread to the West—the
Swedenborgian philosopher
Herman Vetterling commented on so-called "erotic properties" of the durian in the early 20th century.
A durian falling on a person's head can cause serious injuries because it is heavy, armed with sharp thorns, and can fall from a significant height. Wearing a
hardhat is recommended when collecting the fruit.
Alfred Russel Wallace writes that death rarely ensues from it, because the copious
effusion of blood prevents the inflammation which might otherwise take place.
A common saying is that a durian has eyes and can see where it is falling because the fruit allegedly never falls during daylight hours when people may be hurt.
A saying in Indonesian,
ketibaan durian runtuh, which translates to "getting a fallen durian", means receiving an unexpected luck or fortune.
Nevertheless, signs warning people not to linger under durian trees are found in Indonesia.
A naturally spineless variety of durian growing wild in
Davao, Philippines, was discovered in the 1960s; fruits borne from these seeds also lacked spines.
Since the bases of the scales develop into spines as the fruit matures, sometimes spineless durians are produced artificially by scraping scales off immature fruits.
Cultural influence
The durian is commonly known as the "King of the Fruits",
a label that can be attributed to its formidable look and overpowering odour.
In its native southeastern Asia, the durian is an everyday food and portrayed in the local media in accordance with the cultural perception it has in the region. The durian symbolised the subjective nature of ugliness and beauty in
Hong Kong director
Fruit Chan's
2000 film Durian Durian (榴槤飄飄,
lau lin piu piu), and was a nickname for the reckless but lovable protagonist of the eponymous Singaporean TV comedy
Durian King played by
Adrian Pang.
Likewise, the oddly shaped
Esplanade building in Singapore is often called "The Durian" by locals,
and "The Big Durian" is the nickname of
Jakarta,
Indonesia.
One of the names Thailand contributed to the list of storm names for Western North Pacific
tropical cyclones was '
Durian',
which was retired after the second storm of this name in
2006. Being a fruit much loved by a variety of wild beasts, the durian sometimes signifies the long-forgotten animalistic aspect of humans, as in the legend of
Orang Mawas, the Malaysian version of Bigfoot, and
Orang Pendek, its Sumatran version, both of which have been claimed to feast on durians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
