The Lore and Legend of Durian
Text and Photos by Charukesi Ramadurai
Durian varieties come in a range of tastes along the sweet-to-bitter scale.
My husband and I moved from Bangalore to Kuala Lumpur in late February this year, just weeks before the country went into lockdown. Even in the middle of a pandemic, between alarming news stories about increasing infection rates and a tottering economy, I found local newspapers and blogs obsessing over the year’s durian crop with all the seriousness usually reserved for bullion and petrol prices. The most prized varieties, the instability in the durian market and the export crisis were all analyzed in breathless tones.
Beginning in April, through the months of lockdown and movement control orders in Malaysia, supermarkets and fresh food markets had entire shelves devoted to the durian. And all along the sides of Malaysia’s arterial highways and the street corners of every town, vendors displayed them on plastic tables, waiting for eager customers. Cafés and bakeries proudly advertised the freshest durian cream puffs and cheesecakes, with warnings that stocks tended to get depleted really early in the day.
Believed to have first been grown in Borneo, the durian is native to Malaysia and Indonesia, and is also grown in Thailand and the Philippines. In these countries, as well as in Singapore, and most recently China, it is much beloved. Malaysians proudly refer to it as “raja segala buah” or the king of all fruits. Farmers do not pluck this fruit from the tree, but wait for it to fall to the ground when it is ready to be eaten.
Mohana Gill, a fan of the fruit, and author of several books on Malaysia’s food culture, including the folktales collection How the Durian Came to Be and Other Stories: Myths and Legends of Southeast Asian Fruits compares the taste and texture to “smooth custard – it is creamy and slightly sweet.”
Pavan Kharbanda, a finance professional in Kuala Lumpur waxes poetic when he describes the taste of the durian.
“It is smoky and creamy, the beginning and ending notes are different and I find that unique among fruits,” he says.
Kharbanda also notes that Malaysian love for the durian also possibly arises from pride in the fruit being native to the country; he calls it the authentic taste of Malaysia.
“There are so many stories and myths around this fruit that point to the fact that it is the most favorite among Malaysians,” says Nadge Ariffin, a local historian, who also says that it is inseparable from local culture.
Recently, there was a scandal in the state of Pahang, a standoff between local durian farmers and the government, where small durian farmers have been evicted from the land where they have ben cultivating for many years, by the government which has claimed ownership. Newspapers have been joyfully calling it a “thorny affair” and “prickly case”
“I don’t think any other fruit would elicit such passion among our people,” Ariffin laughs. “A banana plantation? Bah, nobody would care!”
To my delight, I discovered that it’s not only locals who love the fruit. Andreas Vogiatzakis, a Greek expat who has been living in Kuala Lumpur for 15 years now, calls his relationship with the durian a love affair.
“Before coming to Malaysia, I had no idea about the durian,” he says. “When my friends introduced it to me, it was love at first sight. It was weird looking, like a weapon, and I was immediately intrigued. Once I put it in my mouth, the flavors just exploded. It was creamy and bitter, it was an incredible sensation. I felt like all my senses opened up to the fullest extent.” Not surprisingly, to this day, he remains a devoted fan.
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Farmers do not pluck durian from the tree, but wait for it to fall to the ground when it is ready to be eaten.
There is a popular Philippine folktale about how the durian, whose name comes from the Malay word duri, meaning thorn, got its form. A powerful king who wanted to keep his young wife close to him sought help from a wise sage. The hermit asked the king to bring him three things: the egg of the black tabon bird, 12 ladles of fresh milk from an unblemished white carabo and nectar from the flower of the tree of make-believe. He then mixed the ingredients into the soil, and a beautiful tree with fragrant and sweet fruit sprung up the very next day, captivating the young woman. The overjoyed king threw a feast for all the important men and women in his kingdom but neglected to invite the sage. In a fit of rage, the sage cursed the tree’s fruit with a foul odor and a prickly shell.
While Malaysians love this tale, they have a more prosaic, if unproven, explanation for the durian’s rough exterior. They believe that the spikes keep the fruit from being eaten by wild animals.
“Some people even swear that they have seen tigers eat durian in the jungles,” Ariffin jokes. “I don’t believe it, but to me, that shows how special they think the fruit is.”
In some parts of Malaysia, there is also the belief that the Orang Mawas, or Malaysian Bigfoot, love to feast on durians, and therefore the fruit grows thorns as a defense mechanism.
There are other myths too around the durian, particularly about its properties, as an aphrodisiac; all around Southeast Asia are variants of the saying “when the durian falls down, the sarong goes up.” Because of its “heaty” qualities, it is never consumed with hard liquor and is almost always accompanied by the “cooling” mangosteen fruit.
Kharbanda also introduced to me the phrase “durian runtuh” that literally means “falling durians” and is used to mean a sudden windfall or abundance. “For example, when someone wins a lottery or makes a lot of money in the share market, we say durian runtuh to show how valuable it is.”
Indeed, the durian is unique in many respects. Like the prized truffle in France and Italy, there is a lot of intrigue and drama associated with the durian here in Malaysia. Farmers who manage to cultivate new varieties or modify existing ones tend to hold the secrets of their success close to their hearts, refusing to let anyone else propagate it. This is especially true for the most expensive varieties like the Musang King and the Black Thorn (D200).
It is not a well-known fact that durian varieties come in a range of tastes along the sweet-to-bitter scale. While the Musang King is generally the undisputed ruler, the ultra-sweet Musang Queen (also known as Tekka) and the XO with its aftertaste of brandy, are also extremely popular among aficionados. For those who cannot afford the prohibitively high prices of these durian varieties, thanks to domestic shortages caused by exports to China, there is always the durian kampung, or the durian grown in local communities.
Scientists in Singapore have delved into the mystery of the fruit’s sulfurous smell, and identified the gene responsible. This means the possibility of creating odorless durians in the future, or at the very least, modifying the smell to make it more acceptable to more people outside the region. But purists like Gill bemoan the fact that the fruit will not be the same. She says that the newer varieties already come with milder smell and taste, as compared to what she grew up with.
While durians have always been used in making curries and condiments like sambal tempoyak, there are also chefs and bakers in these countries trying to modernize the fruit by adding it to desserts, from cheesecakes to cendol (shaved ice dessert with jelly and coconut milk), from ice creams to coffees. In the last few years, even durian flavored condoms (without the thorns, one hopes) have made an entry in the southeast Asian market.
But as Vogiatzakis sighs, “If you find a durian at the right time with the right consistency, nothing beats the experience of eating the fruit as it is.”
