There is scarcely any limit to durian eating if you once begin it; it grows on one like opium smoking, or other acquired tastes; but on the other hand, the very suggestion of eating such an “unchaste fruit” is to many as intolerable as the thoughts alone of supping off cheese and spring onions, washed down with “stout and mild,” followed by a whiff from a short “dudeen” by way of dessert, and yet, while these incongruities are consumed at home with enjoyment, one must not be too hard on those abroad who relish the fragrant durian. About the middle or end of July durian fruit are very common in Singapore, and their spiny skins lie about the streets in all directions. As you pass along you become aware of a peculiar odour all around you—an odour like that of a putrid sewer when half suppressed by holding a perfumed handkerchief to the nose—a blending of a good deal that is nasty with a soupçon of something rather sweet and nice. On opening a fruit for yourself, however, you find that the perfume, like that of the musk plant, ceases to be evident after you have once had a fair whiff at it at close quarters. The flavour of the straw-coloured, custard-like pulp which surrounds the four or five rows of large chestnut-like seeds is perfectly unique: to taste it, as Wallace tells us, is “a new sensation, worth a journey to the East to experience;” but much depends on a good fruit being obtained when perfectly, not over ripe. You then find the pulp sweet, rich, and satisfying; it is indeed a new sensation, but no two persons can agree as to the flavour—no two descriptions of it are alike. Its subtle action upon the palate—and perhaps this best explains the unceasing popularity it enjoys—is like the music of a well-played violin on the ear, rich, soothing, sweet, piquant. The flavour of durian is satisfying, but it never cloys; the richness seems counteracted by a delicate acidity, the want of grape-like juiciness is supplied by the moist creamy softness of the pulp as it melts away ice-like on your tongue.
It is said that the best of whisky is that made by blending several good kinds together, and Nature seems to have blended four or five good flavours together when she made the durian. “A macédoine of fruits,” says a modern author, “when well made and judiciously flavoured, is a delicious sweetmeat. The grape, the peach, the apricot, and the pine, meet in welcome harmony; the pear, the apple, and the cherry, and their friendly companionship, and all these opposing elements of flavour are blended with a soft and soothing syrup.” In a word, the durian is a natural macédoine—one of Dame Nature’s “made dishes”—and if it be possible for you to imagine the flavour of a combination of corn flour and rotten cheese, nectarines, crushed filberts, a dash of pine-apple, a spoonful of old dry sherry, thick cream, apricot-pulp, and a soupçon of garlic, all reduced to the consistency of a rich custard, you have a glimmering idea of the durian, but, as before pointed out, the odour is almost unmentionable—perfectly indescribable, except it be as “the fruit with the fragrant stink!”
The fruit itself is in size as large as a Cadiz melon, and the leathery skin is protected by sharp broad-based spines very similar to those of a horse chestnut. The name durian, in fact, is derived from these—the word duri in Malay meaning a spine or thorn. There are many varieties in the Bornean woods, some but little larger than horse chestnut fruits, and having only two seeds; others larger, but with stiff orange-red pulp, not at all nice to eat, however hungry you may be; and even the large kinds, with creamy pulp and many seeds, vary very much in flavour. The trees are monarchs of the forest, as a rule varying from seventy to one hundred and fifty feet, or even more, in height, with tall straight boles and spreading tops, and the foliage is oblong acuminate, dark green above, paler and covered with rufous stellate hairs or scales below. The fruits of the finer varieties fall when ripe, and accidents sometimes happen.
I saw a native who had the flesh torn from his shoulder by a blow from one of these armed fruits, and saw several narrow escapes, but personally I gave the trees a wide berth at fruiting time. Some varieties, especially the “durianburong,” or wild-bird durians, do not shed the fruits, which hang on the branches until the valves open, when the seeds fall to the ground, or are eaten by hornbills and other large fruit-eating birds and monkeys. I saw some magnificent specimens of durian trees in the Bornean forests north of the capital, and also in other Malayan islands, where the forests had been cleared for cultivation, and these trees left standing for the sake of their produce. Their clusters of large white flowers are produced about April, and form a great attraction to an enormous species of semi-diurnal bat, a kind which is said to be one of the greatest pests of Eastern fruit-groves. It is from cultivated trees that the finest of fruits are obtained; and, without exception, the best fruits I ever saw or tasted were from a tree in the grounds of Government House, Labuan. It does well in Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the Spice Islands, and even as far north as Mindanao. Forests of it exist on the Malay peninsula, and very fine fruit is brought to Singapore from Siam about July or August. On the coast of the Bay of Bengal it grows as far north as Tenasserim, in lat. 14° N., but it does not succeed well in India, and cannot be grown in the West Indies. In Sumatra groves of this tree exist near the Palembang River, and in the primæval forests there are specimens fully 150 feet in height, the fruits being in perfection about September and October; but two crops are produced each year, and throughout the Archipelago one finds its seasons of ripening to be very various.
There are many different varieties, doubtless the result of promiscuous seeding, or, perchance, cross-fertilisation, and one variety actually produces flowers and fruit on its exposed roots.
Of all Eastern fruits the mangosteen is perhaps the general favourite with Europeans, and of all fruits it is one of the most delicious and refreshing. It flourishes in nearly all the islands from the south coast of Java to Mindanao, the most southern of the Philippine group, and on the mainland it flourishes as far as Bangkok, and in the interior to 16° N., but on the coast of the Bay of Bengal only to 14° N. Attempts to cultivate it in India have failed, and in Ceylon success is only partial. In the West Indies all attempts to grow it have proved abortive. In Borneo trees are not uncommon in the forests, but the fruits generally are below the average size, the divisions within are fewer—rarely more than four—and each segment of pulp contains a fully developed seed. When cultivated in richly-manured gardens or orchards, however, as in Penang or Singapore, not only are the fruits larger and the carpellary divisions more numerous, but rarely more than one perfect seed is found in each fruit, the remaining segments consisting of edible pulp only. Similar effects may be observed in the case of the rambi and duku, or langsat fruits, and the best of cultivated mangoes are remarkable for their thin and comparatively small stones, while the edible part on the other hand is much augmented. Under cultivation the mangosteen forms a low round or conical-headed tree, its dark leathery evergreen foliage reminding one of that of the Portugal laurel, only that it is of a bolder character. The waxy-petaled flowers are borne near the extremities of the branches, and are succeeded by round fruits, which, when fully ripe are as large as a medium-sized orange. On cutting the leathery dark purple rind transversely about the middle of the fruit, it is found to be of a port-wine colour in section, and encloses from three to six segments of snow-white pulp, cool and refreshing to the taste, and with a flavour which is something like that of the finest nectarine, but with a dash of strawberry and pine-apple added. It is one of the very few tropical fruits of which even delicate invalids may eat with advantage; and the dried rind, when infused in boiling-water and drank as tea, forms an astringent which has been proved serviceable in dysentery after all other medicines had failed. It is the general native remedy for this disease throughout the Malay Islands, and the dried skins strung on strips of rattan are commonly met with in the bazaars.
When exploring near the capital city of Brunei in North West Borneo I frequently came across a species of garcinia—sometimes in flower, sometimes in fruit—which my native followers called “Prada Prada,” the duplication of particular names being usual in Borneo, for the sake of emphasis, as also among various native tribes in South America and elsewhere. The foliage and flowers are somewhat like those of the mangosteen proper, the fruit, however, is curiously shaped like a boy’s “top,” and of a bright red colour, changing to purplish black when fully ripe. The segments of edible white pulp are usually eight in number—four containing fully developed seeds, and four are abortive or seedless—the flavour being similar to that of the mangosteen proper, but more acidulous.
Of the luscious mango, Rumphius tells us that it was introduced by the Dutch from the Moluccas to Java in 1655, but it grows in India, and as the Malay name and that of the Javanese as applied to this fruit are evident corruptions of that in the Sanskrit tongue, Mr. Crawfurd thinks that it was brought to the Archipelago from the Continent, and that it should not be considered as indigenous. Be this as it may there is no doubt that the mango has long been introduced to the Malay Islands, in many of which it is now perfectly naturalised, and a fruit exactly like the mango in structure is often found in the Bornean woods. It has the mango flavour of the most ultra tow and turpentine type, but its juice is very grateful during hot weather, as I can testify by experience. The cultivated mango forms a round-headed evergreen tree, rarely over fifty feet in height, and generally not much more than half that size. The old leaves are of a deep green colour, but the young growth is often of a bright red or crimson tint. The dense clusters of pea-green flowers are followed by lax-drooping clusters of kidney-shaped fruits which, when fully developed, vary from two or three to as much as six inches in length, and nearly half that in diameter in the broadest part. These fruits consist of a tough green skin and a coat of yellow pulp surrounding an oblong fibre-coated stone, to which the flesh adheres. In the Sulu isles the mango is abundantly naturalised, some of the trees being of large size. In Indian gardens the best kinds are perpetuated and increased by grafting, and this is also the case in Manilla, where the best varieties are equal, if not superior, to those of Bombay, the excellence of which is well nigh proverbial throughout the East. This tree is of robust constitution and regularly produces two crops every year, although at times the crops are very scanty, owing to heavy rains during the flowering season.
It is one of the Eastern fruits the culture of which is moderately successful in the gardens of the West—notably in Jamaica, and very fair samples of this fruit from the West Indies now and then make their appearance in Covent Garden from the Azores. The mango, like its more fastidious neighbour the durian, is one of Nature’s voluptuous productions, of which we have no representative in our gardens, although, so far us the mango is concerned, it might be cultivated successfully in our hothouses with but little more trouble and expense than that which attends the culture of pine-apples or bananas. There are varieties which fruit freely when only five or six feet high, and when only three or four years old; the greatest difficulty in the matter would be to secure the right sorts, which possibly might be had from Madeira, or even St. Michael’s, where fair crops are obtained when the seasons are propitious, and even in Europe proper fruits have been produced in the open air. This was in 1874 at Necessidades, near Lisbon, the residence of the King of Portugal, the tree—a dwarf one—bearing nine fruits about the size of ducks’ eggs.
Of varieties there is literally no end, a result doubtless brought about by indiscriminate propagation from seed. Some are small with tough skins, large stones, and fibrous pulp, with a strong turpentine-like flavour. Others are large, with thin stones, the skin being tender and the thick pulp quite soft, like that of a real Beurré pear, the flavour being most luscious and delicate, without a trace of the turpentine-and-tow-like combination so marked in the case of inferior kinds. The flavours of the different fine varieties are most varied, much more so than in the case of our best pears, and two or three good mangoes before breakfast form a treat sure to be appreciated by a lover of good fruit, and much as I appreciate a good durian, the mango seems to me a far more delicious and refreshing fruit for general consumption under a hot sun.