At a nice lit­tle restau­rant in Kuch­ing, Sarawak on the island of Bor­neo we (in the end, only half of “we”) decided to indulge in some cheese cake — Durian cheese cake. The first taste was like what I imag­ine a leech feels like when it makes con­tact with salt. But then, some­where and ever so sub­tly, a tiny flare of culi­nary delight sparked. Maybe delight’s too strong a word. Inkling. Chan’s one and only micro­scopic taste had well passed as I went in for my third and even fourth fork­fuls. And then, at first, just as faintly as that first moment of inter­est another wave was over me of the “this doesn’t taste right” vari­ety. Quick dab of the nap­kin in both cor­ners of my mouth, fork down and a gen­tle but earnest slide of the plate over to the edge of the table and I was done.

Chan had already ordered in a replace­ment dessert and the wait­ress placed it on the table with a smile when I asked, “Do you like durian?”  That even­tu­ally lead to the Maleng­lish ver­sion of “Durian before beer, never fear.  Beer before durian, always wor­ryin’”.  Basi­cally, some peo­ple don’t “take” to durian.  If the pun­gent stench and over­whelm­ing taste isn’t enough, you sim­ply may not “take” to it?  As told, the Golden Rule of durian eat­ing is not to mix the risky ven­ture with beer.  Lead­ing, I asked, “But it should be fine if I had a beer an hour ago, right?”  No reas­sur­ance.  Instead a 15 minute descrip­tion, rid­dled with an uncom­fort­able num­ber of gig­gles, about the poten­tial symptoms.

If I am one who doesn’t take to durian, I have a night of cold sweats, “heat­ing belly” and fre­quent trips to the bath­room to look for­ward to.  Did I men­tion we’re stay­ing in a guest­house dorm with six oth­ers and a shared toi­let down the hallway?