Chapter DURBAR to DURIAN of D by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Our forefathers had not such delicate noses, as may be gathered from some of the older notices. A Governor of the Straits, some forty-five years ago, used to compare the Dorian to ‘carrion in custard.’

c. 1440.—“Fructum viridem habent nomine durianum, magnitudine cucumeris, in quo sunt quinque veluti malarancia oblonga, varii saporis, instar butyri coagulati.”—Poggii, de Varietate Fortunae, Lib. iv.

1552.—“Durions, which are fashioned like artichokes”(!)—Castanheda, ii. 355.

1553.—“Among these fruits was one kind now known by the name of durions, a thing greatly esteemed, and so luscious that the Malacca merchants tell how a certain trader came to that port with a ship load of great value, and he consumed the whole of it in guzzling durions and in gallantries among the Malay girls.”—Barros, II. vi. i.

1563.—“A gentleman in this country (Portuguese India) tells me that he remembers to have read in a Tuscan version of Pliny, ‘nobiles durianes.’ I have since asked him to find the passage in order that I might trace it in the Latin, but up to this time he says he has not found it.”—Garcia, f. 85.

1588.—“There is one that is called in the Malacca tongue durion, and is so good that I have heard it affirmed by manie that have gone about the worlde, that it doth exceede in savour all others that ever they had seene or tasted.… Some do say that have seene it that it seemeth to be that wherewith Adam did transgresse, being carried away by the singular savour.”—Parke’s Mendoza, ii. 318.

1598.—‘Duryoen is a fruit that only groweth in Malacca, and is so muc h comeded by those which have proued ye same, that there is no fruite in the world to bee compared with it.”—Linschoten, 102; [Hak. Soc. i. 51].

1599.—The Dorian, Carletti thought, had a smell of onions, and he did not at first much like it, but when at last he got used to this he liked the fruit greatly, and thought nothing of a simple and natural kind could be tasted which possessed a more complex and elaborate variety of odours and flavours than this did.—See Viaggi, Florence, 1701; Pt. II. p. 211.

1601.—“Duryoen…ad apertionem primam…putridum coepe redolet, sed dotem tamen divinam illam omnem gustui profundit.”—Debry, iv. 33.

[1610.—“The Darion tree nearly resembles a pear tree in size.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 366.]

1615.—“There groweth a certaine fruit, prickled like a ches-nut, and as big as one’s fist, the best in the world to eate, these are somewhat costly, all other fruits being at an easie rate. It must be broken with force and therein is contained a white liquor like vnto creame, never the lesse it yields a very vnsauory sent like to a rotten oynion, and it is called Esturion” (probably a misprint).—De Monfart, 27.

1727.—‘The Durean is another excellent Fruit, but offensive to some People’s Noses, for it smells very like…but when once tasted the smell vanishes.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 81; [ed. 1744, ii. 80].

1855.—“The fetid Dorian, prince of fruits to those who like it, but chief of abominations to all strangers and novices, does not grow within the present territories of Ava, but the King makes great efforts to obtain a supply in eatable condition from the Tenasserim Coast. King Tharawadi used to lay post-horses from Martaban to Ava, to bring his odoriferous delicacy.”—Yule, Mission to Ava, 161.

1878.—“The Durian will grow as large as a man’s head, is covered closely with terribly sharp spines, set hexagonally upon its hard skin, and when ripe it falls; if it should strike any one under the tree, severe injury or death may be the result.”—M’Nair, Perak, 60.

1885.—“I proceeded…under a continuous shade of tall Durian trees from 35 to 40 feet high…. In the flowering time it was a most pleasant shady wood; but later in the season the chance of a fruit now and then descending on one’s head would be less agreeable.” Note.—“Of this fruit the natives are passionately fond;…and the elephants flock to its shade in the fruiting time; but, more singular still, the tiger is said to devour it with avidity.”—Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings, p. 240.