Transcript

8.7.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and to
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day I will be reading the Smithsonian magazine date of
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July August twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye
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is a reading service intended for people who are blind
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or have other Disabilitiesled a search for the world's best Durian,
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the divisive fruit that's prized and reviled. Devotees of the
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crop journey to a Malaysian island to find the most
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fragrant and tasty specimens by Tom Downey. Once you actually
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taste and smell a ripe Durian, the Southeast Asian fruit
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best known for its penetrating odor, you will understand what
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all the fuss is about and why it's banned from
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some public spaces throughout the region. You may not like
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the taste, but you will appreciate the passion and revulsion
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the fruit inspires. You may also marvel at the strange
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ways those sentiments converge. It has something we call a hong,
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a sudden smell, in this case, the aroma of bad
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breath and butane gas, said Wang pang Ho, a Malaysian
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Chinese doctor and Durian fanatic. As we shared a particularly
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pungent fruit on the Malaysian island of Penang, just off
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the country's west coast. You know how when you smell
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butane and you know it's not good, but you want
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to continue sniffing anyway. That's Hong later, sampling a fruit
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at a remote Durian farm. Marcus Morris, a Canadian digital
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nomad who moved to Penang largely based on the fruit's availability, proclaimed,
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this Durian has the flavor of a penny. It's like
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licking a brass door knob. He meant that as a compliment.
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True Durian Officionados don't just accept extreme flavors, They celebrate, savor,
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even exult in them. The late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain
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once said of its aroma, try leaving cheese or a
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dead body out in the sun, and you're in the
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same neighborhood as Durian. The fruit is complex and taste
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and smell, varied in texture and surprising in its effects.
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Flavors can span sweet, bitter, acidic, fatty, and creamy, with
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specific tasting notes that might include cacao, blue cheese, pumpkin,
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or even bacon or chives. In texture, Durian can resemble cheese, custard,
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ice cream, or over ripe stone fruit. Some of the
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most sought after Durian boasts a rare and peculiar numbing effect,
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much like mala peppers used in Seschuan louisine. The smell,
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which at first can evoke garbage, raw onions, and garlic,
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seems as you grow to appreciate Durian to shade into
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more positive notes, such as whole milk, strong cheese, and
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high proof rum. Almost all desirable Durian, at least in Malaysia,
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has fermented to the point that it has a slight
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or strong taste of alcohol. In short, Durian contains multitudes
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not found in any other raw fruit or vegetable, perhaps
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not in any other uncooked food sashimi or beef tartar
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connoisseurs may disagree. No place on Earth draws more fanatics
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than Penang, the world's mecca for Durian lovers. One night
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last summer in Georgetown, Penang's cosmopolitan capital city, I marveled
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at the Malaysian, Singaporean and Chinese Durian lovers thronging McAllister Road,
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the city's main Durian eating strip. I strode past stalls
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stacked high with pale green, prehistoric looking specimens. Durian is
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a formidable, nearly impregnant bull fortress of a fruit weighing
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between two and eight pounds and armour plated with sharp
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triangular spikes that pierce the skin if you touch them
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in the wrong way. Though it goes on sale at midday,
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it's most popular to consume at night, likely because Malaysians
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believe it is heaty, meaning it makes you feel warm
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and penang is scorching during the day. When I visited,
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locals and visitors were arranged around tables, eating, talking, laughing,
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savoring the experience as they might at a cocktail ball
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or Jelatia elsewhere in the world. Even here, however, on
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the finest Durian eating street and the Durian capital of
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the world, spectacular Durian remains elusive. No vendor will simply
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hand you world class fruit, no matter how much research
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you do or what price you pay. Great Durian, they
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seem to believe, has to be earned by your selection acumen.
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So to eat fantastic fruit, you first need to learn
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how to choose the perfect Durian. At one stall, I
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watched as the matriarch of a family engaged a fruit vender.
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There was a short, sharp exchange in a Chinese dialect,
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likely Hokien. The matriarch started smelling fruit, weighing the spiky
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samples with her hands, and haggling with the cellar. At
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long last she made a selection, and the vendor knocked
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on the fruit with the stick usually done to assess ripeness,
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then bracing it with a gloved hand. He masterfully inserted
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a small sharp knife into just the right place and
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pried open the shell to reveal the oblong edible yellow
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orange pods that lay within. Following her lead, I went
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through the motions, sniffing, probing, haggling for fruit, But of
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course it was all in vain because I knew nothing.
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After a few nights of aimless water during and random tasting,
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I realized something important. Unlike local people who have had
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Durian wisdom pass down to them by their friends and relatives,
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I desperately needed a guide, some one who could help
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me decipher this array of very strange fruit. In search
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of this knowledge, I came across a distinct breed of sojourners,
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fruit travelers who crisscrossed the Earth in search of just
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off the tree perfectly ripe produce. I also discovered that
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Penang Durian growers were in the midst of an existential
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struggle over the future of this fruit. Fortunately, like virtually
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all foreigners searching for their Durian whisperer, I had found
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online Lindsey gask an American woman who for more than
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a dozen years has been on a world wide quest
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to eat the best Durian and to teach others some
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of what she has learned. That was how a few
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days after leaving Georgetown, I found myself at a small
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farm in Balik Pulau, Penang's Durian growing heartland, with hilly
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slopes rolling down to the Strait of Malacca, where Gaysic
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was conducting a master class for Durian novices. I hoped
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to learn to select prime Durian, open it and analyze
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its taste. For Gaysic, now thirty six, it all started
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sixteen years ago while she was working at what she
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describes as a hippie festival in the northwestern United States.
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She smelled something strange in the camp sites and outdoor
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class rooms of the event. She asked around. She sniffed
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she asked around some more. Finally, an older man told
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her that she was smelling Durian, a magical fruit from
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Southeast Asia, a superfood, the healthiest thing in the world.
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If you eat it, you will get addicted to it.
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He told her. It elevates your spirit, opens your chakras.
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Durian will change your life. He was right about the addiction.
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Gaysk finally found Durian at a local Oregon market, tasted it,
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and loved it so much that she flew to Southeast Asia.
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Since then, Durian has become her vocation and her profession,
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and it remains her obsession. She started a blog called
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Year of the Durian about her quest, and she has
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become one of the most famous and knowledgeable foreign Durian
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guides on the planet, with close to one hundred thousand
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followers on Instagram. An a budding small business also called
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Year of the Durian. That ship's high quality hands selected
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frozen fruit including sempedak, mangostein Petai beans and other exotic
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items from Asia to the United States. When I contacted
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the Malaysian government in Penang in search of a local
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Durian expert, I was referred to Kaysk. When I met farmers,
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street side Durian cellars and knowledgeable locals, they too suggested
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I meet her lindsay can find a great Durian just
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by the smell of the unopened fruit, when farmer said,
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I don't have a nose like that. The farm where
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we convened for the class had a simple guest house
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and restaurant made of dark wood, set in the middle
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of the dense greenery of the orchard. Gathered with me
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were a budding Durian farmer growing the fruit, and Costa Rica,
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an Indian real estate mogul who'd flown in from Hyderabad
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via Singapore, where pictures he shared seemed to suggest that
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he'd consumed more fine Durian in one day than many
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Officionados will consume in a lifetime. A Chinese Australian retiree
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originally from Hong Kong who is a raw food vegan
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and joins almost every Gasic Durian tour offered a few
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times a year at various locations in Asia. A California
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bartender who had before this trip only tried frozen Durian
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from Costco. A Vietnamese American Durian lover who first tried
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the fruit in Vietnam, and two Malaysian Chinese entrepreneurs with
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the Durian store in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur
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and an export business shipping the fruit to China, the
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most lucrative Durian market in the world. Leading us were
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gaisk her Swedish husband Richard Koivusalo, who first met her
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in person when he was a student in one of
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her classes, and TiO Schan Tat, a Chinese Malaysian guide
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from Penang who is an obsessive Durian hunter and one
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of the founders of a local historical organization Penang. Hidden gems.
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After a meal composed of long fermented Durian and a
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pungent curry, intensely bitter green Petai beans also known as
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stink beans, and an array of raw produce and herbs,
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we set out on a night time Durian hunt. Most
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Durian fall at night and in the early morning, Gay
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Sick explained, so as we walked through the orchards, you
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have to be very careful. These fruits are heavy. If
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you hear a slight wish sound, cover your head and
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run away from it. We also needed to be very quiet,
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gay Sick said, so that we could hear where the
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durian had fallen and locate it. We marched carefully up
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the hill, staying on the path as instructed, so that
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we would be out of range from falling fruit. After
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a few minutes, I heard the gentle thump of a
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fruit hitting the net. Gay Sick led us to the
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location and pointed to the fruit with her flashlight. This
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one was caught by a net the farmers set to
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break its fall, she said, so it didn't hit so hard.
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Then her husband demonstrated how to safely grab a durian
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quickly and cautiously, so that you minimize the chances of
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being hit by another falling object. As he rejoined the
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pack durian in hand, we heard two more buds, and
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we collected those durians too. When a durian naturally detaches
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from its tree, falling to the ground or in a net,
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the impact creates tiny cracks in the shell, which begins fermentation.
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The window of greatness for a durian post fall is
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said to be about one to twelve hours. This initial
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fall is also when the fruit's aroma is least pungent.
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Durians don't really start to smell until they've begun to
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ferment a little, Gaysic said, once we were back at
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the farmhouse. When we smelled at the just fallen Durian,
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there was virtually no scent, quite as sollow. Gaysic's husband elaborated,
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fermentation is one way we can control and shape the
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taste of the fruit. He said, It's a bit like
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sour dough. He went on, we want a certain amount
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of fermentation. But good fermentation produces the desired alcohol taste
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and cuts down on the sweetness by metabolizing the sugar.
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But if it over ferments, Durian tastes rotten, becomes too
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bitter and transforms into a fibrous, hard to eat mess.
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Much great food and drink relies on a similar kind
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of tension. Wine needs a little volatile acidity to give
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it energy and life, but with too much it begins
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to taste of vinegar, dry aged beef. It's a sweet
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spot after around thirty to fifty days, but some time
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after that it becomes more redolent of socks than steak.
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What's different about Durian is the range of texture and
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fermentation that combines to achieve a superlative balance. This complexity
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is I started to understand a big part of what
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excites people so much about this fruit. Fine Durian exists
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on a razor's edge between extraordinary and awful. The elusive
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nature of this balance is clearly part of the fascination
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for Durian enthusiasts. To experience prime Durian, you need to
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be in a place where you can eat it shortly
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after it falls. But the season when that happens between
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May and September and Penang has become even shorter and
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more unpredictable, likely as a result of climate change. Thus,
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each bite feels like a cosmic, unreproducible convergence. Gaysik told
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us that one of the things she loved about Durian
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was knowing that a superlative fruit she experienced right now
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would be the only time she ever tasted something exactly
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like that. This unique sensory experience makes Durian meaningful to
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its devotees in a way that verges on the religious.
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Penang's residence have long cultivated Durian trees here are old,
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many of them planted more than a century ago. Connoisseurs
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seek out fruit from these aged flora because they impart
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a desirable bitterness, produce a thin skinned specimen with more
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edible flesh and yield some Durians with an elusive numbing sensation.
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In Bilik Palau, sea breezes blow through the orchards, bestowing
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a subtle saline taste on the fruit. Penang Durian farming
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is mostly small scale, possibly because land here is steep
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and rocky and thus challenging for industrial agriculture. There are
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also a number of family owned organic and biodynamic farms,
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the latter of which focuses on sustainability and holistic management.
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In contrast, the monocrop farms of mainland Malaysia and Thailand,
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a northern agricultural competitor, where the fruit is considered ripe
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and ready to eat when is much firmer, are large
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and vast. In fact, Gaysick explained in Thailand, most farmers
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harvest durian from the tree before it has naturally fallen,
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then spray it with a chemical ripening agent as they
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prepare it for sale. There are other ways to accelerate
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this process, such as intentionally tossing them on the ground
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as Gaysic did with fruit she felt needed further fermentation
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before eating. This makes the production much more controllable and profitable.
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The farmers, not nature, get to determine exactly when they
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want to pick, ripen, and sell. Most Malaysian farmers, though,
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believe that interfering with the natural ripening process is a
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grave sin against the fruit, which should only be eaten
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after it falls unassisted. Still, with Durians recently fetching their
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highest prices ever, with some specimens selling for more than
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one hundred dollars, almost all professional Durian farmers on Penang
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now use nets on their trees, allowing farmers to preserve
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their fruit for as long as possible before it becomes
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over ripe. One exception is Erik Chong of green Acre's orchard,
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who lets all his Durian, including the most expensive varieties,
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fall directly to the ground. I prefer the natural way,
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he told me when I visited his farm. Durian should
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start to vement when it falls. I don't sell much
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to the market anyway. I want people to come here
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and experience not just the fruit, but the whole farm.
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For hardcore Durian lovers, Chong as a prophet who revers
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and amplifies what they most love. Its ephemeral, utterly unreproducible essence.
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For them, the greatest Durians are always on the verge
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of destruction and wrought. But Kasik tells me there is
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a powerful array of forces challenging this view. People in
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the Durian and here often look up to Thailand's industrial
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Durian farms. She said. They grow and sell much more
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Durian there because they chemically ripen it so they can
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control it. You can make the most money, or you
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can grow the best fruit. You can't do both. And
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with the Chinese market for Durian growing, the fruit's historic
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producers Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are facing increasing
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pressure from upstart growers in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and southern
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mainland China itself. So far, Gasik went on, most Malaysian farmers,
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especially here in Penang, have chosen to grow the best
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fruit and make less money. The question is whether they
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will continue to do that. A few days later, I
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drove up a windy road to nearly the top of
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the mountain that separates Balik Pulao from more densely populated
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areas of Penang to reach Baosheng Durian Farm. Baosheng was
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one of the first biodynamic Durian farms in Malaysia, and
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its owner is credited with calling attention to durian's numbing properties.
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There was no signage and no obvious reception desk. Though
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the farm is also a hotel, there was no point
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of sale for its Durians. I hunted around and finally
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found two foreigners slicing into avocados and downing massive quantities
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of Mangoestein's, the telltale signs of raw food vegans at
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meal time. They explained that there was no Durian for
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sale here. Everything was eaten by the guests. We started talking,
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and I learned that these two had traveled there separately
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for the chance to volunteer for a month during Durian season.
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They had to break open the shells for guests and
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assist on the property. Why had they come here on
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their own dime to work for free? Oh, it's a
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no brain. Noh Stein, a Californian, said, we get to
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eat all the Durian we want when we work here.
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Not the prime stuff, of course, but even the damaged fruit,
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and the rejects here are amazing. I'd do it every
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day all year if I could. The next day, Gaysk,
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who'd also worked at this same farm early in her
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Durian career, took me to meet the most intense group
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of Durian enthusiasts she knew. Kenji Tan, a Chinese Malaysian
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extreme foody from Penang, Glen Chee, a Singaporean who lived
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in Johar Barhu, Malaysia, Marcus Morris, the Canadian residing here
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who'd identified the penny taste, and a group of their
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friends and family. We met at a little known farm
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on a steep hillside that towered over vast rows of
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high rise apartment buildings in a working class part of
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Penang near the airport. Tan told me that some members
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of this group criss crossed the country during the dura
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in season, hitting different farms each weekend, even flying to
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Borneo in search of a unique Durian only found there
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that has red colored flesh. For Tan, though nowhere beats Penang,
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this is the Durian heartland, he explained. This farmer look
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at the way he smells, touches, selects, and opens this fruit.
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He's a master. He has people like us up here
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every week, so he has to be through the chef
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and owner of a marvelous Malaysian restaurant in San Francisco
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called Azalina's. I met another Durian farmer, Tang Boon Lee
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of Songhai Farms. We sampled his produce in a shaded
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area of his hilltop farm, eating bitter sweet mouthfuls of Durian,
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some of it well known varieties and some grown from
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ungrafted trees known here as campong, which means village in Malay.
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Tang said his father worked in the canteen of a
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British Air Force base on the island and had bought
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this orchard in nineteen sixty six. He'd watched him labor
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for decades in the orchards, climbing up by motor bike
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every day during harvest and then riding down with each
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day's yield balanced precariously on the bike. Tang grew to
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love eating Durian. Then, when his father could no longer
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work the farm, he took over. Eating Durian was a
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hobby for me, he said. Now it's something more important.
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My father can't get up here to the orchard any more.
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But we have a Durian stall just in front of
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where he lives. Every day he watches people who go
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there to eat his Durian. He can't really talk any
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more and tell us, but I could see how important
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it is to him to see all of these people
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enjoying what he spent his life building on. By last
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day in Georgetown, after abstaining from Durian for a few days,
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I strayed away from the mc allister road stalls in
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search of a vender gaysack Rerek commended named tay Boon
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Tyke or Fatty. I still hadn't learned to select a
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truly amazing Durian. That's a next level skill. But I had,
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at last, and at least learned a bit about what
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I wanted. Bitter, I said, some alcohol taste numbing if
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you have it old tree, intense taste. Tyke nodded. He
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probed each Durian from the small group he'd selected for
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me by sticking his knife blade into the fruit, then
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sniffing it when it came out slick with Durian pulp.
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This one, he said with conviction, and sliced open a
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small caprive variety. I took a bite. I tasted cacow cream,
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maybe mescal. It was alive, it was rotting. It was wonderful.
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I thought back to what Geesik had told me about
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the singular moment of each great Durian. There will never
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be a Durian like this again. That was why this
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moment and this fruit was so special. Next, a new
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biography offers the most intimate portrait yete of one of
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the twentieth century's greatest authors. Research into James Baldwin's archives
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reveals incisive details about the writer's personal relationships, both platonic
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and romantic, with other men. By Brandon Tensley. In nineteen fifty,
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James Baldwin and his lover, the painter Lucienn Happersberger, set
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out from Paris for the mountains of Switzerland, where Baldwin,
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then around twenty five, hoped to climb his way out
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of a creative funk. It worked. While hiking, Baldwin nearly
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fell down a ravine, but Happersberger grabbed him, saving his life.
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Out of this frightening biblical experience, writes Nicholas Boggs in
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his new book Baldwin, A Love Story. That day, Baldwin
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conjured the final title for his novel, Go Tell It
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on the Mountain. Drawing on previous sky dollarship materials held
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at archives such as Yale University's Baldwin Collection and decades
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of interviews with Baldwin and his friends and confidants, Bogg's
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book is the first major biography of the writer to
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focus on his most intimate male relationships, both romantic and platonic.
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Boggs shows, for instance, how Happersberger, whom Baldwin met a
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year after moving to Paris and later called the love
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of his life, gave the young writer the sense of
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connection and rootedness he needed to write during a time
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of tremendous uncertainty, having recently left behind his life in
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New York. Boggs also writes about how Beaufort Delaney, a
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black gay painter twenty years baldwin senior, whom the writer
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called his spiritual father, helped the young writer, then struggling
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with his craft and sexual identity, to see the beauty
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of the world around him and to begin to see
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it within himself. And the book relays a touching story
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about how Delaney gave Baldwin the courage to buy a
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one way ticket to Paris by promising to join him there,
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though at the time neither of them was certain it
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would happen. Previous books about Baldwin treated his relationships with men,
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whether lovers or friends, as a side note, or ignored
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them almost entirely by focusing on these men. Other examples
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include Joran Kazakh, a French artist and sometimes lover, and
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Engen Cizar, a Turkish actor and creative collaborator. Boggs traces
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the relationships that shaped Baldwin's life and art, which in
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turn has had such an indelible impact on the literary
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and political landscape of the twentieth century. In Bog's hands,
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Baldwin's life story feels complete. Finally, asked Smithsonian from Monica Cartwright,
26:58
North Wales, Pennsylvania, how does a bison carry the weight
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of its large hump? The answer is from Olivia Cosby,
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Great Plains Science programm Ecologist, National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
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As you might expect, a bison's iconic hump places extra
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weight over its forelimbs. However, rather than hindering its movement,
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this feature is actually an adaptation that enhances its ability
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to survive in a diverse range of North American habitats.
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The hump is made of powerful muscles supported by elongated
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thoracic vertebrae, and this front heavy structure makes it easier
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to push through obstacles and dig through heavy snow, which
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can be critical to foraging during winter months. This concludes
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readings from the Smithsonian magazine for to day. Your reader
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has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have
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a great day.