Five Things You Should Consider When Buying Durians

2011-05-06

With the durian season coming, you can be sure that every corner of Singapore’s market will be full of stalls selling the king of fruits. How do you choose the best fruit from the numerous durians those sellers force you to buy? Here are some things to consider: 1. Tip You can usually tell if the durian is fresh or not just by looking at its tip. If it is already too dry, it only means that the fruit has been plucked from its tree for quite a while already—meaning: it is no longer fresh. But if you still see that there’s a little bit of sap on it, then you’re in luck. You just found a fresh durian for your family! 2. Smell Buying a durian would have been so much easier if you could crack the fruit open to check its freshness before you proceed to buy it. Sadly, once you open it, it’s considered sold. So, the oldest trick in the book you can try is using your nose. If you smell its strong and sometimes pungent odour, then that’s the fruit you are looking for. Reject it right away if it smells rotten, because most likely, it is. 3. Bottom When you check the fruit’s tip, the next thing you should also look at is its bottom. If you see a crack, then the durian is already overripe. There’s still a chance that it may taste good, but are you willing to risk paying for it and finding out later on that it’s not fresh anymore? The better thing to do is to choose one that hasn’t got any cracks or marks to it. 4. Skin Worms love to burrow inside fruits such as durian. You wouldn’t want to buy a durian with a surprise crawling inside it, right? The best way to avoid this “worm situation” is to inspect the fruit’s skin before you even buy it. Make sure to check every corner and see if there are any holes made by these pests. If there are none, then you can be assured that the durian is worm-free! 5. Sound To become a complete expert in choosing durians, one more thing you can do is to put the fruit close to your ear and shake it gently. If you hear a lot of noise, it usually means that the fruit is hollow. One possible reason is that the flesh has been eaten by worms already. If there is a whoosh sound, then the fruit is most likely fresh. Find more Singaporean delights here Must-try local faves you don't want to miss

OpenRice SG Editor