durian

Two countries grow the same species, Durio zibethinus, and end up with two products that share almost nothing on the plate. Thai growers cut the durian

Walk through a tropical market and three big, spiky fruits can sit in the same bin, so alike on the outside that shoppers mix them up daily.

A durian with four names across three languages usually has a story behind it, and D160 has a good one. Most Americans meet it under its glossiest label

D88 confuses more durian buyers than almost any clone I get asked about. Part of that is its split reputation, and part is that it often turns up under

The question lands at my farm stand more than any other about this crop. A visitor picks up a spiky husk, wrinkles their nose, and asks whether the thing

Durian desserts occupy an odd corner of my work. I farm exotic fruit outside San Diego, but I cannot ripen a durian tree reliably in this climate, so nearly

Somebody at my stand last August held up a 2 kg Monthong and asked what he was actually paying for. Fair question, and the answer stings: most of that

Yes. Harder than almost anything else I have put in the ground, and I have been growing tropicals on eleven acres east of San Diego for fifteen years.

The first durian I ever opened cost me a knuckle and forty minutes. I was hacking at the top of the husk like it was a coconut, which is exactly the wrong

A friend in Guadalajara texts me every summer asking where the durian is, and every summer I give him the same disappointing answer with a small piece