Some time ago someone asked me to send some recepies of Filipino dishes home. However, if I had to make an extensive list of - how shall I put it - 'unusual' food served in the Philippines, I would hardly know where to begin. Therefore, let me just introduce you to what is considered to be 'the king of fruits' by Filipinos: durian. Durian is a fruit that only grows in very specific climatic conditions close to the equator (if the temperature drops below 22 degrees during daytime, the fruit stops growing). You can only find it in a few places in the world and some people are so well trained in tasting durian that they can point out the exact location where a specific durian was grown (pretty much like people taste wine).
There are many peculiar things about the durian. To start with, it has a very hard spiky husk. If you think of quietly reading a book in the shade of a tree, better not make it durian tree cause you probably won't live to tell if one drops on your head. Secondly, durian has a very penetrating scent you can smell from 20 metres away. Apparently, durian is forbidden in some places because bystanders would be bothered too much by the smell. The most difficult thing to describe is of course the taste. I tasted a fresh durian for the first time at the local fruit market a few weeks ago and I must say it tastes like nothing I ever tasted before. It's not as repulsive as I feared it would be, but you definitely have to get used to it. Once you do, it is said that it becomes a kind of an addiction. I'm not quite there yet, but in the meantime I've tasted durian coffee (with bits of durian floating in it) and durian icecream.
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