The article that we bring you next is one of the most curious articles about food we have ever made. Today we want to talk about the fruit of the Durian. Have you heard it named before? It is very likely that you have not seen any of these fruits before and that you have not even heard or talked about them since they are native to South Asia, and they are not widely commercially speaking either.
Durian is the most common tree species in the Durio genus whose edible fruit is also known as durian. There are 30 recognized Durio species , at least nine of which produce fruit that can be eaten.The Mon thong species is the most commercially sought after due to its thick, full-bodied, creamy and sweet-tasting meat, with a relatively moderate smell and with seeds smaller than the rest of the species.
If you had been at some point of your life near a durian fruit, believe us, you would remember! Even with the shell intact, this Asian fruit has a stench so powerful that it has even been banned on Singapore trains. Richard Sterling, renowned writer and food taster, once wrote:
“its smell is best described as… turpentine and onions, adorned with a gym sock.You can smell it a few meters away."
However, despite its foul smell, there is a minority of people who love it, there must be everything in this life, and it is clear that for tastes the colors.Anthony Bourdain said of the fruit of the durian:
"Indescribable, something you would love or despise...Your breath will smell as if you had kissed your dead grandmother"
How do you eat the durian fruit?
The meat of this fruit can be eaten in different ways; can be eaten raw, cooked and sometimes even used to give flavor to a large number of dishes and candies typical of Southeast Asia. Another utility they give to this fruit is medicinal, both as a treatment against fever and an aphrodisiac.
Of what what are you You are absolutely sure that, regardless of the sensation that this fruit arouses you, it is clear that its smell is extremely strong and powerful .
Why does the durian fruit smell like that ?
In the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, a study has been published where a group of scientists from the German Research Center for food chemistry tries to answer how and why this fruit It produces such a powerful stench.
Thai durians were taken and the aroma extract decomposed with a mass spectrometer and a gas chromatograph.The equipment, which was led by Jia-Ziao Li was able to identify 50 compounds in the fruit that could be responsible for their particular, and uncommon, aroma. These compounds included 8 that had not been detected before in the durian fruit and 4 compounds that were completely unknown to science to date.
The conclusion on study determined that the powerful stench of fruit did not come from a single compound, but from the mixture of different chemicals .The compounds are identified by their chemical formulas, which are likely to be cryptic for anyone without a degree in organic chemistry (sulfanil, ethanothiol, for example), but the research team associates each with a particular smell.
The interesting thing about the research is that none of the compounds seem to coincide individually with the characteristic smell of durian fruit, but they vary widely. The labels that could be associated are, for example, fruity, metallic, gummy, burned, roasted onion, garlic, cheese, onion and honey .Some of these compounds have been previously detected in other substances such as cooked meat, yeast extract, dried squid or leeks.The mystery is that the combination of these 50 compounds gives rise to this powerful aroma that has large followers and great detractors.
Apart from the foul and powerful smell, the fruit of Durian is a jewel for the entire scientific community.A study carried out in Japan in 2009 determined that Durian extract strongly inhibits the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), which is the enzyme that the liver uses to break down alcohol.This would explain a tragic tradition of Asian folklore; getting drunk while eating durians, which can lead to death.
This has been our article on the fruit of the durian, did you know it? What do you think about the characteristics we have explained about it? Surely after reading us you have not been too eager to try this "succulent" and "tasty" fruit is not it? Write us and give us your opinion, we will be happy to read you!
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