The Durian Fruit: Chemistry and That Smell
I was in Thailand on business with a colleague and we found ourselves in a rather remote street market with lots of durian for sale. Our local hosts thought it would be fun to expose us to this "delicacy".
It's interesting how different people react to this thing. I damn near gagged as soon as the guy at the stall cracked one open but my friend more or less was "hmmm that's interesting". When he pulled the fruit out of the shell and handed it out the smell was astoundingly bad, at least to me...my friend grabbed it and brought it right up to her nose.
I did manage to eat some and really the taste wasn't as bad as the smell would lead me to believe but I could only get a couple of pieces down before the smell was too overpowering. Just the smell I was getting from breathing out after eating it was getting to me. I was afraid I'd puke if I tried it again. My friend ate quite a bit of it and said she kind of liked it.
This video (6 min) examines why it smells the way it does. My experience pretty much mirrors the guy at 3'05'' and my colleague, the lady at 3'33''
= new reply since forum marked as read
Or at least against airline regs, can't remember which. And yes, it's because of the smell.
Some things don't need to be videos. I'd rather see a text version any day, especially the chemistry that flew past too quickly.
As for the variability in taste/smell to different people: there's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylthiocarbamide#Role_in_taste
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro (Oh, don't act surprised. 
)
Apparently many others, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to acknowledge others.
