So I engaged in one of my favorite federal-holiday activities today, which is going to the Asian grocery and buying a bunch of intriguing junk food. (Of course I could go to the Asian grocery any day, but for some reason I generally end up doing this only on Memorial Day or Veterans’ Day.) One of my acquisitions was a package of durian-flavored wafer cookies. Durian is, of course, the famously awful-smelling Southeast Asian fruit that, like, airlines won’t let you bring on board planes because the smell is so nauseous, but which is nonetheless beloved by Southeast Asian people the way people of many cultures love their own repellent foods, like Scots and haggis, or Louisianans and crawfish. I thought artificially-flavored cookies might be a relatively safe way to find out what all the fuss is about.
If these cookies are to be believed, durian tastes like my parents’ garage smelled after my dad used it to whip up a couple of gallons of insecticide. I had to wrap the opened package in a plastic bag and take it out to the garbage can, and then light a bunch of candles, to get the stink out of my house. I don’t even want to think about the potential lethality of a real, true-to-life, non-artificial durian, but I’m sure it’s potentially a felony in many states to force fraternity pledges to eat one.
Now, off to taste my appealingly-packaged “basil seed beverage”….
*J*D*L* 