In article >,
Julia Altshuler > wrote:

> I'd heard about the smell so I approached cautiously and put my nose up
> to it. I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Is it a deal
> where the odor is released when it is cut into?

Around here (Minnesota; likely other places, too), durian quite
often are sold frozen or near-frozen to minimize the smell in the
market.

> I was dying to buy it to see what it was about, but my in-laws are
> extremely non-experimental when it comes to food, and I never would have
> gotten away with it.

Not with durian, no. I tried durian once during a trip to Singapore.
I'd heard about it. I knew that Singapore does not allow durian on
the subways (pictographs of spiky fruit with the international red
circle and "don't" slash through it). I had to try it. We ordered a
durian milk shake. It did, indeed, smell like used gym socks
containing fermented cheese. It tasted a little sweet, but
onion/fermented cheese overtones to the sweetness were just too much
and the remainder of the shake was tossed once we were out of sight
of the hawker's stall.

At least we tried it.

sd