The ONLY Reason Why People Eat Durian

Durian, the popular fruit of Southeast Asia, is completely polarizing. You either love it, or you hate it. My Asian friends and family use it as a litmus test to see how Asian I am. 

Can I cut it properly?

Can I eat it?

Nope. I am not Asian at all. I will never accept durian.

The giant spiky fruit resembles a medieval weapon. If that doesn’t deter you, then its fragrance of sewage and rotting flesh will. There are many famous quotes of people describing its unappealing smell and taste. Here are a few of my favorites: 

“Like eating raspberry blancmange in the lavatory.” —Anthony Burgess

“Like pungent, runny French cheese … Your breath will smell as if you’d been French kissing your dead grandmother.” —Anthony Bourdain

“Vomit-flavoured custard.” —The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei

“To eat it seems to be the sacrifice of self-respect.” —Bayard Taylor

Creative descriptions by durian-haters abound on the internet, however there are few enraptured descriptions from durian-lovers. They claim they love it, but they say bland things like:

It’s great. Something like cheesecake. 

There are those that have learned how to accept the offensive odors, and now relish durian with gusto. My durian-lover friends are waiting for me to convert, but if I want to eat cheesecake, I’m gonna go eat some cheesecake. I’m not going to hack through a spiky pod to dig out something that looks like blanched liver. 

Which brings me to my conclusion. The ONLY reason why people eat this fruit is for

BRAGGING RIGHTS.

• If you hate it, you now get to tell the world how awful it is. The Asian in you isn’t shining through, but your survived it and lived the tell the tale. 
• If you love it, you now get to brag about your pod-hacking knowledge and highly evolved (or non-functioning) olfactory system. You’re also seen as some kind of holder of super-Asian genes.
• If you’ve been converted, you get to tell everyone still holding their noses that you have the ability to appreciate your gourmet heritage. You. Are. Asian.

What Would The Neighbors Think

In the span of a 20-second conversation, a lot of information can be shared, either intentionally or not. Complete strangers suddenly reveal that their relative lost a limb, or they will casually drop that they own property in Europe. Even at the mailbox, a neighbor might say, “I’ve been waiting for a letter from the editor of The New Yorker.” It’s always something identifying, something they are either burdened with or proud of. Maybe it’s an unconscious habit. Or maybe it’s just what we do – a form of small talk. Whenever I pick up on these little slivers, I wonder what sort of stock phrases I drop around. Even if I never utter a word, how am I building up an image of myself to others? Our actions can declare who we are before our words. Like my neighbors. I have never met them in person, but I still know something about them: Meg and Dan.

Like many people, Meg and Dan eat. They have the first unit, next to entry door. The whole building can smell what’s cookin’ as we walk past their unit, down the hallway towards our own homes. On Sunday mornings, it smells like bacon. On weekday evenings, it smells like Italian – something cheesy and garlicky. On weekends, though they shouldn’t, they leave their recycling just outside their door, and the rest of us have to step around their empty pizza boxes and cardboard beer carriers. Always from brands that are trendy, innovative – old craft made new and cool.

Being in the first unit means that their windows are visible to the street. They use their windowsill as a bookshelf, and it is stuffed with titles like: Learn How To Trade Stocks, and A Path to Financial Freedom. 

Curious how the titles are all turned to face out. Why would they face their book spines out towards the street and not in towards themselves? Why make us take notice of their preferences? I suppose we all love displaying our personalities, from bumper stickers to pins. We like to announce our identities. Letting us see that they are interested in their building a secure financial future must somehow make them feel – smart, together, on track.

Last week, propped in their window is a banner with the word FINALLY. Like a triangle flag you’d hold up at a parade, the flag is made of felt with a wooden dowel as the handle. At the end of the triangle point, an illustration of a diamond ring is hanging on the branch of the Y. It is displayed for our benefit. Even if Meg put the news on blast on her social media, it wasn’t enough. She wants to blast it out to the street.

How long did Meg wait for Dan to say the words? How many Friday night pizzas and Sunday brunch pancakes did she chew through before saying YES. Seems to me like she’s happy with her new status, and yet a little bitter about the timeline. I thought they might move away, because we all had to walk around an old side table they had left in the hallway, as well as old IKEA lamps and other disposable-type furniture. I was a little hopeful that they would leave, so we wouldn’t have to step around the detritus of their happiness anymore. It’s pretty rude of them to treat the hallway as their personal garbage bin. What does THAT say about the kind of people they are? I imagined them discussing their future housing options over sushi, or some other yumminess, planning out how to invest their stock earnings into a nice piece of real estate, something that would give them a great return on their investment in 30 years.

But no luck. Today a large box from WayFair was tossed into the hallway. They have bought a new coffee table. The box wasn’t even folded and tied up. You could see footprints over it where my other neighbors have walked across, none of us willing to do Meg and Dan’s work of taking the box out to the recycling bin. I added my footprints to the mix, while breathing in the smell of some tomato-onion-garlic recipe. Meg and Dan were home, making dinner, maybe about to settle in over a dinner of spaghetti while propping their feet up on their new coffee table.

On my way to my unit, I stop and turn around. What does it reveal about me if I leave the box there? I pick up the box and fold it flat. It is as big as a sail. Very politely, I lean it against their door. The box covers it completely, and at some point when they exit their unit they will be faced with a wall of cardboard. Am I being petty? What would the neighbors think?

I don’t need to know their thoughts. There are more pressing things to think about, like what to make for my own dinner.

The New (Old) Beauty Standard

What if our definition of beauty and ways of defining beauty were completely a result of our inner selves?

Beauty standards are described as unattainable, partly because we keep changing the external factors. Just look back on past decades to see how trends influence everything from body shape, to hairstyles, to zip codes. Things we thought were the pinnacle of good taste are quickly replaced by newer standards claiming to be the pinnacle of good taste.

In our modern age, the constant chase of beauty often comes down to the price tag.

We may feel that the more expensive the item/service/house is, the more beautiful it is, and thus if we own it, the more beautiful we will become. The commercial world has become very good at selling us an idea of beauty, packaging it up so we feel our belongings and memberships are signals of our status, and indicators of our ability to discern what is worthy and beautiful. But it wasn’t always this way.

Lao Tzu, a 6th-century BC Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism, taught that beauty was everywhere, and it was free. Everyone deserved to have beauty in their life, feel beautiful as they were, and spend their days being able to appreciate beauty, no matter how much money they had.

Taoist masters believed that beauty was a guiding directive in a person’s way of being.

One needed to make their own actions, thoughts, and words beautiful in order to see beauty outside of themselves. If you were angry, or prejudiced, you would be unable to recognize beauty in the world, or in other people.

In other words, with the right mindset and by cultivating our own actions, thoughts, and words, we have the ability to see the beauty in ourselves, others, and in our surroundings. We don’t need to rely on external signals and agonize over attaining them.

That sounds like a wonderful beauty standard to me.

The Aesthetics of Food and How Zen Buddhism Influenced Our Plating

If you’ve been to a fancy restaurant, one of those that serves really small bites on very large dishes, then you might have experienced some Zen plating principles at play.

It doesn’t have to be fancy — but definitely the kind of place that sincerely considers the guest’s experience. The chefs may not know that they are using Zen principles. In fact, every meal they serve could simply be their opportunity to show you how amazing their food artistry is. If that is the case, it is the complete opposite of Zen, and would come off as pretentious or overworked. However, if it imparts a tranquil feeling and shows you a beauty in the ingredients that you may not have detected before, then it is very close to Zen meal.

In Zen Buddhism, meals are meant to nourish the body and the spirit.

This means, if you are the one cooking for others, then it is your job to:

• Bring out the best in each ingredient.
• Serve in a way that creates harmony and serenity.
• Create the right match between food and serving vessel.

This manifesto is part of almost every Michelin Starred restaurant’s mission. The difference is in whether or not the effort is for the guest (Zen) or for the glory of the restaurant (ego).

Ideas, like ingredients, have traveled around the world and have evolved. By the time it lands on your plate, the idea has gone through many transformations, and you might not even know where the idea originated from. I like to believe that if you’ve ever found yourself choosing a certain dish to help highlight your food, or rearranged to make your cheese and crackers look more inviting so it gives a little more pleasure to your guest, then that is some Zen thought at work.

You could argue that this is just being decent hosts, having some design sense, or emulating the service of nice restaurants. But which came first — Zen Buddhism, or the idea of elegance and service, crystallized into 3 Michelin Stars?