Odd Banning

Take a nice look at that photo. Obviously, wherever the hell this place is they have a problem with smoking, food, drink, flammable goods, and durains. When you think about it, durains are a food, so you could get in trouble for bringing one in regardless of whether or not the exact rule was in place…

By now, you may be wondering what a durain is, and why the heck this place banned it. I’ll be attempting to uncover the reasons behind the banning of this spiky fruit…

The Durain is revered in Southeast Asia as the ‘King of Fruits’. It’s quite large and has a heavy husk. The fruit can grow up to 12 inches long, with a diameter of 6 inches. The fruit can also gain the weight of 2-7 pounds! The durain is covered in sharp, prickly thorns. A naturalist descibed the flavor as, “a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds”. The flesh can be eaten at a variety of times during ripening, along with the seeds being eaten after cooked.

Funnily enough, as I looked through the article I was using for info, I found the exact same picture, along with a caption. The caption claimed the sign was in Singapore’s Rapid Mass Transit System. The reason of the banning was the smell. According to multiple sources, the smell of the durain is overpowering.

“Its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia”

A quote from Richard Sterling, the traveler and food critic, lies above. Obviously, the overpowering smell is shit. With a bunch of other things along the lines of shit. So, the banning of the durain is actually, not that odd.

This is the Nightly Rambler, signing off.

~ by nightlyrambler on June 9, 2008.