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The (Repulsive) King of Fruits

2021.07.04

Hey everyone, Nicholas here with yet another food related blog!

Like most Singaporeans, I enjoy eating most fruits. Most of those fruits that I used to enjoy, however, are tropical fruits and are very expensive here in Japan. Among all these tropical fruits, one of them is said to be the King of Fruits, being extremely nutritious and also being known for its extremely pungent smell — the durian.

Some would say that Singaporeans love durian so much that we even have buildings that look like durians…

The esplanade in Singapore, also known as the durian

Since it has been a long time since I last went back to Singapore, I haven’t had the chance to have durian for a long time. Recently, I found that it was actually possible to get frozen durian from online shops but for an exorbitant price.

I tried to hold back my cravings as much as I could until I caught a whiff of one of the sulfur containing compounds in the laboratory. It smelt so much like durian that I had to get some. I gave in to my impulses and ended up splurging on the famous species from Malaysia known as Musang King, Cat Mountain King, or 猫山王.

Musang King —— The very definition of edible gold

Considering that durian has such a strong fragrance that most people cannot accept, I was wondering if it contained any compounds with sulfur. Sure enough, research had been conducted to find what gives durian its notorious smell. The paper documenting that study can be found here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b05299

When eating durian, there is just one unspoken rule — always eat it with others. While durian itself is delicious, sharing it with others makes the whole experience of eating it much more enjoyable. Therefore, I decided to have the durian delivered right to our laboratory.

Opening the packet, I caught a whiff of the sweet fragrance that I had missed for so long. Everyone else around me, however, commented on how it smells like a sulfur containing compound. We decided to go outdoors to have it since having it in the lab seemed like a spell for disaster.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the durian, not everyone had as much fun as I did.