Chanthaburi World Durian Festival

I came back to Southeast Asia just in time for durian season and the timing was no coincidence. I arrived in Bangkok, jet-lagged and tired, at six in the morning. By two in the afternoon, I was wandering the streets of the Chanthaburi World Durian Festival.

I tried to temper my expectations, but they were absurdly high. World. Durian. Festival. I likely would have been disappointed by anything short of a free 24-hour tasting booth with my name on it.

So when I saw the festival was a modestly sized street fair with only a few booths devoted to durian, I was disappointed. That said, it is hard for someone as obsessed with durian as I am to be wholly disappointed when at least 20% of the vendors have stacks and piles of my favorite spiked fruit.

It would be a bit more accurate to call this a fruit festival. Chanthaburi is a famous fruit-producing province in Thailand, and the bounty is especially impressive in summer. We walked by many booths overflowing with mangosteens, durians, rambutans, snakefruit, pineapples, jackfruits, and more. In addition, there were stalls selling street food of a wider scope than usual (though there was no sticky rice with durian, which surprised and disappointed me anew). The festival seemed more of an excuse to bring the family, have a walk around the man-made lake with the kiddies, and sample the snacks from the street vendors.

There was a parade and a giant stage.

The sign above the cosmic backdrop says Amazing Thailand World Durian Festival Chanthaburi 2011

And floats decorated elaborately with fruit.

Trust me, you want a closer view of this.

Check out those rabbits made from durians, cucumbers, mini eggplants, and chili peppers. Also, get a load of the chili pepper mustache on the turtle!

There were prizes awarded to the best durians in several categories and breeds.

Everywhere you could see statues of durians, pictures of durians, and even two kids dressed up as durians.

But I was hoping for more. I was hoping for a booth comparing and contrasting the different breeds of durian so I could begin to get an idea of which my favorite were. I thought it might have been nice to have durian in every conceivable permutation—ice cream, pastries, chips, preserved and dried, jams, candies. Maybe some hands-on booths which would allow you to create something—durian with sticky rice, for example. How about an informational booth in which you could learn about the process of growing and harvesting durian? I'd like to know more factoids about durian production in Chanthaburi, too. I know that a higher percentage of land in Chanthaburi is devoted to growing durian than anywhere else in the world, but I'd like to learn more. Maybe it could be possible to book a tour with a local orchard through the festival, then go visit that orchard later during the week, while there, sampling different varieties and seeing how durians are grown.

All the same, there was a lot of durian, and that is guaranteed to put a smile on my face. Here are a few highlights:

Watching durian chips being made. Turns out, it’s basically the same process as potato chips. They take underripe (and thus firm) durian, slice it on a mandoline, then fry it up in batches.

I sampled organically grown durian.

Met a kind seller who gave us all the free durian we could eat, even opening and gifting us a whole three-kilo fruit to share.

But perhaps the biggest success of the afternoon was that I finally got a chance to learn about and taste different varieties of durian: golden pillow, golden button, long stem, gibbon. I’ll write up a separate post comparing these varieties soon.

So of course it was a fun afternoon; it just wasn’t the durian gluttonfest I had anticipated.

The Chanthaburi World Durian Festival is held every year at the beginning of durian season, usually in May.

Grammar note: I apologize for the vacillation. I’m not sure whether durian is a countable or uncountable noun and therefore treated it incoherently as either and both depending on my whim in each sentence :)

Thai Fruit: Santol

Just yesterday I tried to explain this fruit to a Thai friend. The name Santol wasn’t ringing any bells, so I think there must be a different Thai name. I wanted to say that it looks like a softball covered in a paper bag and tastes like oregano, but I’m pretty sure that would have elicited an even blanker stare than the one my hesitant pronunciations of Santol was being met with.

A picture would have saved me from such verbal permutations.

The skin is akin to the unlikely baby of a fuzzy peach and crinkled paper bag. It is thin and, I don’t know, possibly edible in the same sense that that paper bag is edible: it won’t kill you but it won’t taste good either.

But open up the Santol and you’ll find some delightfully contrasting textures. The six or so seeds in the middle are surrounded by white spongy flesh, while the outer sphere of flesh is tawny with the firm, but yielding texture of an Asian persimmon.

And the flavor? Well, the spongy flesh surrounding the seeds is juicy and tart. The Santol is sometimes compared to a lollipop because this flesh will never separate from the seed, so to extract flavor, you must resort to sucking on it in an undignified manner.

The outer flesh not only has the texture of Asian persimmons, but also has their mild astringency. This part of the fruit leans more toward savory flavors. The first time I ate a Santol, it took me five minutes of slow, contemplative chewing before I realized what that familiar taste was: oregano! As you journey outwards from the sweeter center of the fruit, the fresh, grassy taste of oregano becomes more pronounced and the fruit becomes more puckeringly astringent.

Here is one last shot to show you the unique texture of the flesh-covered seeds. I’ve never experienced a texture like this before, so I don’t know what to compare it to. It’s springy and bouncy, like a button mushroom minus the squeak. But it’s also juicy and floods your mouth with flavor (like a marinated sponge?) and the more you bite down on it to extract the flavor, the more slippery and wily it becomes.

So to end this post in the style of a fourth-grade book review: I enjoyed eating the Santol!! It was yummy! I recommend everyone go out and try one!!!!!!

Thai Fruits: Custard Apple

Here’s another of my favorite fruits, the custard apple. Just look at that lumpy, scaly outside, like the skin of a frog.

I’ve seen people go at this one with a knife, but where’s the fun in that? Each scale easily lifts off the fruit, revealing soft white flesh underneath.

The custard apple is sweet and juicy, with a slightly grainy texture like that of a soft ripe pear. It is almost purely sweet, but not cloyingly so. Each surface scale covers a small geometric section of flesh which separates easily from the rest of the fruit and surrounds a smooth and very hard black seed. I swear the seeds are so firm and heavy, they could easily be mistaken for pebbles.

So while I don’t see why it’s called a custard apple (in fact it seems as dissimilar from custard as it does from apples), this is yet another favorite fruit.

I wonder how many times I can call a fruit my favorite before I lose all credibility?

When the Durians Fall Down, the Sarongs Go Up

I get self-conscious every time I write about durian. You see, if I wrote about durian as often as I think about it, I’d have to rename this blog Durian Vagabond: Vagabonding in Pursuit of Durian.

I can’t help it though. To me, durian is more than a fruit in the way that to others, wine is more than a drink. Durian has an unmatched depth of flavor, each cultivar completely unique, each fruit unique. Is that a hint of mint? An aftertaste of onions? The brightness of vinegar highlighting a creamy almond custard? And the texture. Oh lordy, the texture. Soft, melting, rich, luscious, sexy. Yes, sexy. There’s a saying in Malaysia and Indonesia: when the durians fall down the sarongs go up. I can’t actually attest to that, but I can say that eating durian gives me a natural kind of high. From the first bite, warmth spreads through my body as a smile takes over my face. Though I would prefer to attribute its happiness-giving-qualities to magic, apparently durian contains tryptophan, a natural antidepressant also found in chocolate.

My friend here, Nutthavan, is often my partner in durian-related highjinks. She loves a perfectly soft and ripe durian as much as I and regales me with stories of the durian of her youth. She grew up in Trang, in southern Thailand, at a time when the ginormous and overly sweet Mon Thong (Golden Pillow) durian was not as prevalent as it is today. The durians then were smaller and less fleshy, but more intensely flavored. And they were allowed to ripen fully on the tree. You wouldn’t think to eat a durian until the tree had released it and it had fallen to the ground with a thud as if to say, “I’m ready. Come eat me! Enjoy!” Eating durian was (and still is) a social activity. Open a few durians and the smell will advertise their presence. Family and friends gather round, grinning with each taste as the magic (er, tryptophan) takes over.

Soft durian and sweet sticky rice accompanied by a durian-infused coconut milk sauce

Durian is widely known to be a heating fruit and is often eaten with the mangosteen, a cooling fruit, to maintain balance. Nutthavan likes to tell me that when she eats durian she doesn’t need a blanket at night. I always chuckle and nod, but what I don’t tell her is that this is Thailand—I never need a blanket at night. After all, durian season follows on the still-hot heels of the hottest season, as if it is Nature’s apology for all the misery She put us through during those sticky, sweltering, sun-drenched days. And with the first luscious bite of durian, all is forgiven.

Thai Fruits: Salak

There’s no delicate or ladylike way to say this. Salak look like dragon testicles. Though I’m not normally one to disparage any edible flora, I’d guess that they taste pretty similar too. That’s a roundabout way of saying they taste a bit musty, a bit, er, sweaty.

That may sound like an admonishment, and I hate to admit to liking the taste of dragon testicles, but you must remember my obsession with durian, which, by Anthony Bourdain’s account, tastes like “french-kissing your dead grandmother”. So I’m not adverse to strange-tasting fruits and while I wouldn’t seek out the salak, I certainly haven’t given up on it.

The scaly outside is sharp and prickly, but if you’re careful, you can peel the thin brittle scales away from the delicate flesh underneath. The salak isn’t likely to draw blood, but it just might give you a splinter or two.

Testicles. 

Once peeled, the fruit is firm, but yielding and a little juicy. There’s not much flesh though, as the seeds inside are large. Salak is perfumed and has a piercing smell. The flavor is pungent and sweet and sharp, with a long, lingering flavor.
I don’t know if I would buy it again. It’s a bit of a pain to peel, the edible portion of the fruit is small, and it tastes a bit (and I mean this in the least negative way) sweaty.

Thai Fruits: Rose Apple

I remember buying a kilo of rose apples as I waited with my bicycle for a ferry to cross one of the numerous tributaries and rivers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. I’ll be honest, the rose apple was my third choice, purchased after the jackfruit and mango both proved too expensive. At 5,000 Dong (*snicker*) (about $0.60) per kilo, it was hard to say no them though. I munched on a rose apple, appreciating its crisp and juicy texture, and I watched the family next to me slurp down cold ca phe sua da (iced Vietnamese coffee) as we all waited for the tiny ferry to come take us across. Frankly, I didn’t know where I was, which of the many rivers I was crossing, nor exactly where the ferry was heading, but it didn’t matter. I had Bowie, my bicycle, I had enough Dong (*snicker*) for a guesthouse, I was surrounded by a smiling family, and I had a bag of rose apples.

Thus began my appreciation for the rose apple, an otherwise fairly neutral fruit. One thing it has going for it is convenience. It’s portable, there’s nothing to peel, and you can eat the entire thing. Yes, there are one or two tiny seeds in the center (see picture below), but they’re edible and barely noticeable.

It looks like some kind of capsicum-apple mutant and that fairly accurately describes the flavor as well. It’s crisp and mildly sweet. A few I recently ate had the remarkable taste of a well-dressed salad—vegetal and slightly vinegary. Though I understand if that’s not what you’re looking for in a fruit, you’ll have to trust me that it was an entirely pleasant experience.

It’s safe to say that the rose apple falls under the don’t-get-too-excited-if-you-see-it-in-your-local-ethnic-grocer category. It is pleasant and refreshing, but doesn’t taste as exotic as you’d hope.

Thai Fruits: Rambutan

You can’t deny the appeal of the rambutan. It looks like some kind of unhatched alien egg. It tickles the imagination and promises an exotic flavor experience, which, frankly is a check the rambutan just can’t cash.

The florescent-green-tipped spikes are soft and malleable, despite their velcro-like appearance. The skin easily peels away from the fruit inside, revealing firm, translucent white flesh which is sweet and succulent.

But the rambutan is the least tasty of the four eyeball fruits (my own classification). The other, yummier eyeball fruits are longan, lychee, and grapes. The problem lies not in the rambutan’s flesh, which is juicy and purely sweet, but in the flesh’s proclivity to cling to the large woody seed inside. This makes it hard to get a clear bite of the sweet fruit without getting a piece of the seed’s bark as well. But it’s not just a texture issue. Though I’ve yet to meet anyone else who agrees with me, I find the bark of the seed tastes disturbingly like fish. Even if I ate fish, I’m pretty sure I’d never choose to pair it with rambutan.

My students here in Thailand have recently let me in on a tip which converted them from rambutan haters to groupies. It’s simple and elegant, but I’ve yet to try it. Because I’m lazy and rambutan has burned me before. They suggest using a knife to peel away the flesh from the seed. Now they can’t get enough of the organic rambutan we grow right here in our own little orchard. Someday, when the supply of mangosteen, longkang, and dragonfruit dries up, I might just give rambutan another try.

Thai Fruits: Longkong

Despite its humble appearance, the longkong may be one of the more exotic fruits I’ve documented so far. I say this because it doesn’t appear to have an English name, and very few people outside of tropical Southeast Asia seem to have any knowledge of it.

“Oh, you mean longan?” someone will inevitably ask.

“No, longkong,” I’ll state again for the umpteenth time, really trying to annunciate that last ‘g’.

Since trying longkong for the first time over a year ago, it has earned a spot in my pantheon of fruit :) It has a deliciously light, sweet taste, cut through with a zing of acidity which wakes up the mouth. Its texture is soft and though each segment is contained by a thin translucent skin, when you bite into the fruit you discover its juicy nature.

As you can see in the picture above, it is easy to peel and kind of miraculously splits evenly and geometrically in several triangular pieces. No knife required here. It does have a bit of white sap which leaves a slightly sticky residue on your fingers though. No problem, just dab your hands with moisturizer or a bit of oil after eating to remove the sap.

When eating longkong, be wary of its seeds. Usually there are just one or two seeds per fruit (generally depending on the size of the longkong), but trust me when I say you really don’t want to bite into one! The seeds are bitter; to me they taste exactly like pine resin smells. They’re easily avoided though, as you can see a greenish brown seed lurking through the translucent skin and flesh of the fruit segment.

Longkong is high in phosphorus and vitamin C. More importantly, it’s totally delicious. I’ve read that longkong is being more widely cultivated, so if you’re lucky enough to run across it wherever you are, I recommend picking up a bunch.

How to Eat a Pineapple

I know. I bet you didn’t think you needed instructions.

Well, you probably don’t. Just hack that thing open and go to town, mess and waste be damned. But I thought you might like to learn how people here in Southeast Asia cut and prepare their pineapple. It’s something I’d never seen before moving to this part of the world.

But first, a little tidbit about the fruit itself. Pineapple is an all-season fruit, available year round. But when I first arrived in Cambodia, I look for it in the market and couldn’t find it. A hint first came to me in char kreung, a yellow curry with vegetables and chunks of sweet sour pineapple. I had been looking on the wrong side of the market. The pineapple wasn’t next to the mangoes and rambutan, instead it was with the cucumbers, limes, and eggplant in the vegetable side. So although pineapple is technically a cluster of berry-like fruits, in this part of the world, possibly due to its common usage in savory dishes, pineapple is sold like a vegetable.

Now to the instructions. Top and tail that sucker, then cut just enough to remove the skin. Don’t cut so deeply that you remove the little black eyes. You’re conserving precious pineapple flesh here!

Using a small, agile knife, cut along one side of the eyes. You’ll be cutting in a diagonal fashion across the pineapple. You can follow the eyes in a leftward or rightward (as I did in the photo above) diagonal. It makes no difference.

Cut in a parallel diagonal line on the other side of the eyes, angling the knife a bit inward and under the eyes so you can remove the little strip of flesh that contains the row of spiky and sharp eyes. Continue this process until every line of eyes has been removed.

Et voila! Your de-eyed (oh, the violence!) pineapple is ready to eat.

I’m not going to lie. This method is more work and requires a bit of knife skills, but it conserves more of the delicious pineapple so the fruit can end up in your belly instead of in the compost.

Mangosteen

Let the fruit exploration continue!

I remember reading a book that detailed the story of a dying woman’s last wish to eat one more mangosteen before she died. Naturally, this story piqued my interest in the fruit.

Years later, during my first week in Cambodia, my host bought me a cartoonish purple fruit with a silly little hat of lime green leaves. I had no idea what it was and no clue how to open it. “It’s a mangosteen, of course!” she exclaimed, digging her thumb into the base to pry open the fuchsia exterior. The interior of the mangosteen surprised me completely. Those neon white sections, almost like a monotone little mandarin orange, were perfectly contained within the thick purple shell. This fruit was totally blowing my mind and I hadn’t even tasted it yet.

The texture is as juicy as a ripe peach and the flavor is similar in some ways as well. A mangosteen tastes pure, light, refreshing. Its flavor is a burst of sweet and tart in your mouth, but doesn’t linger, doesn’t bite your tongue, and definitely doesn’t weigh you down. The mangosteen is considered by Chinese medicinal wisdom to be a cooling fruit. This is one reason it is widely known as the queen of fruit, as it is generally eaten after consuming the heating durian, which is known as the king of fruit. Check back because I’ll be posting about durian and the World Durian Festival quite soon.

Lastly, I want to share a little trick I recently learned about mangosteens. When you turn them over, you’ll see a daisy-like purple flower embossed on the base. Count the petals. However many petals you see on this flower is exactly how many sections of juicy white fruit are inside the mangosteen. Neat, huh?

Red Dragonfruit

Now that I’m in Thailand, I’m eating fruit for breakfast every day. Many of these fruits are unique to Southeast Asia and other tropical climates so I thought it might be interesting to blog about such lesser-known fruits.

Let’s start with my first choice for breakfast: dragonfruit.

Dragonfruit is one of the most beautiful fruits I have ever seen. Just look at the pink and green skin with its scale-like protuberances (and wait till you cut it open!). It is a heavy, juicy fruit shaped like a mini nerf football. Its skin peels off easily with no need for a knife, which makes it easy to eat on the go but I’ve cut it open here so you can see the gorgeous, speckled interior. Dragonfruit comes in two common varieties, white and red. The white, though visually stunning, is not particularly flavorful.  It is most notable for its crisp and juicy texture and crunchy little black seeds—almost like a bland kiwi. A squirt of lime juice will liven it up, though. Here’s a tip I discovered when I was staying in Mui Ne, Vietnam (the epicenter of all things dragonfruit): pop the white dragonfruit in the fridge and eat it cold for a refreshing treat that will cut through a hot sticky climate.
 
The red dragonfruit, in contrast, has a sweeter, more concentrated flavor. It is as juicy as the white dragonfruit, but is more perfumed, with a pure and mild sweetness uncut by any tartness. Like beets, it stains your hands red when you eat it, and be warned, it will color your, um, output (?) as well. I had a few apprehensive moments until I figured this out :)

See how easily the peel separates from the fruit?

I’ve read that some people are trying to cultivate the dragonfruit more widely, but there are some inherent difficulties with this. The dragonfruit is a night-blooming cactus which is pollinated by a type of bat native to South and Central America as well as Southeast Asia but cannot be found in many other places. So if you see a dragonfruit in the U.S. or in Europe it will likely be very expensive as it’s either been shipped a long way or hand-pollinated in a boutique orchard. Therefore, I would recommend giving it a pass unless you’re desperate to try it.