Durian: Yum!

"Why you so crazy for durian? You are Ang Moh. I scratch my head."** A couple of weeks back, my Singaporean friend Irene (and yes, that's pure Singlish she's speaking) asked, when we were talking about what has been called the "King of Fruits", the durian.

Looking like an overgrown lime gone punk, this incredibly spiky (yes: you can be killed by one of these falling on you) fruit, with notable exceptions down the ages (mostly English, I am proud to say) bisects two peoples into the 1/ "love it" (South East Asians) and 2/ "blaaaarggh...barf" Westerner categories. Notable food hard-man Andrew Zimmern being one of the latter (snigger...."Fairy!").

The smell of the thing is very pungent, and the first time I encountered one, my chemist's nose was physically assaulted by an aroma I was trying to put names to, but is most reminiscent of a chemical factory. After a few seconds of trying, I realized the thing's overwhelming odor is a result of a huge amount of strong fruity (ester) components, so what you are getting is the BIGGEST fruit smell you will ever encounter. At which point your brain will either reject the smell ("Aaagh it's too much!") or (as mine did) say "YUM!".

The ones I tried on this trip, and there are hundreds of varieties were a bit grey-looking, not the usual bright green, and the skin on the white seed pods was a little chewy. "It's the end of the season" said Sehar, so we were not in for a huge treat, but the creamy/custardy flesh with its slightly nutty, fruity, mildly sweet taste was still pretty good to me.

Another colleague and I tested out a well-known myth that "If you eat durian and drink alcohol, you will die". The folklore being that alcohol and durian are both "heating" and you will explode and fry your brains.... or some such shit. I'd already committed suicide in Singapore by doing this: according to my friend who has my immense respect as a scientist, but gets an 'F' in biology. As you can imagine, I am typing this from beyond the grave...Woo! Spooky!!!

Safe Travels! Des

 

**Trans: "Why do you like durian so much? You're a white guy? I'm perplexed."

Soul Food: Malaysia (Singapore Style)

As part of the ritual of getting acclimatized to a new country, I always try to get as much of the local food into me as soon as possible. Depending on what I learn from my local colleagues or on the web about food-hygiene concerns, I either eat well-cooked food, and drink coffee or hot tea (e.g. in Mexico)... or just tuck into whatever is going (e.g. in Japan). The only time I have been ill from eating food was in Suzhou, China - it was Western-style food with Third-World style preparation.

One place you are very safe and can eat pretty-much everything is Singapore. You may need to take out a second mortgage if you want to drink the beer, however. ["Tiger, tiger, burning bright / holes in your pockets on a drunken night..." Apologies to Blake.] The pictured meal was the Grand Plaza Park Hotel's slightly off-kilter, but very enjoyable, version of the Malaysian soul-food "Nasi Goreng". The Grand Plaza threw everything but the proverbial kitchen sink into this one:

- Chicken satay

- Dried fish (similar to Indian "Bombay Duck")

- Chicken wings

- Shrimp and veggie fried rice

- Prawn crackers

- Vegetables with hot sauce on top

- Lettuce and tomato salad

- Fish sauce on the side

- Fried egg on top

...no Spam though. Which is always a good thing. Bloody vikings!

Safe travels!

Snow Clouds over China: Feb 2008

Some of you may remember the heavy snows from February 2008 that brought most of China to a grinding halt, with railway stations and airports crowded by thousands of stranded passengers. I got alerted to the situation by my Suzhou-based colleague just before flying into Beijing, and so spent a couple of days warming my heels in Singapore before changing my flight plans completely and flying to Japan. On the flight over, I took these photographs of the view from above the chaos, just as the sun was setting. They looked even more spectacular in real life, as the photos can not do justice to the way the clouds were layered one on top of the other. I'd never seen anything like it before.

Safe travels!