Durian smells so strong that hotels and trains ban it
The spiky durian can weigh three kilograms, tastes of custard with savoury undertones and gives off an odour that may linger for days. Some find it sweet, others find it revolting, and hotels and transport systems in Singapore and Bangkok forbid it outright. One Thai scientist even bred a variety with no smell.
Durians come from trees of the genus Durio, which has 30 recognised species, at least nine with edible fruit. Only one, Durio zibethinus from Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, is traded internationally, and it has more than 300 named varieties in Thailand alone. The name comes from the Malay word for thorn, duri. The species name nods to the civet, though it is disputed whether Linnaeus meant the smell or the fact that civets love the fruit enough to be trapped with it.
Trees grow 25 to 50 metres tall and flower straight from the trunk and large branches. The blossoms are big, feathery and nectar-laden, with a heavy sour-buttery scent that suits their main pollinators: nectar-feeding bats such as the cave nectar bat and the large flying fox. A few species rely instead on spiderhunter birds or giant honey bees. Trees start fruiting after four or five years.
Europeans first heard of durian from the fifteenth-century traveller Niccolò de' Conti, who described a green fruit the size of a watermelon holding buttery segments with a mix of flavours. The Portuguese took it to Ceylon in the sixteenth century. In 1949 the botanist E. J. H. Corner proposed the Durian Theory, arguing that luring animals to swallow and carry seeds was the earliest method of seed dispersal.
Cultivation is serious business. Malaysia has kept a registry since 1934, giving each cultivar a code beginning with D; the famous Musang King, D197, traces to a tree found in Gua Musang, Kelantan, in the 1980s and grafted in Raub. In Thailand, Mon Thong is prized for its thick, mild flesh. By 2007 the government scientist Songpol Somsri had crossed more than ninety varieties to produce Chantaburi No. 1, which lacks the notorious smell. A durian craze in China in the early 2020s sent international trade soaring.
Source: Durian
