In Part 3 of the Book of Salt, Binh details his initial thoughts of working for the two American women, Miss Toklas and GertrudeStein. He describes this house as a temple. He uses amazing imagery to describe how people form thoughts. “We are, instead, weighted and heaviest by decades of observations . . . once they are formed, ours become the thick, thorny coat of a durian, a covering designed to forestall the odor of rot and decay deep inside” (22). This imagery inspired me to research more about durian.
As mentioned, durian is a large fruit with a hard exterior shell encasing a custard-like yellow pulp. The fruit is eaten at all stages of ripening. Its flavor can range from vanilla, to cream cheese, to egg. Durian is famous for having a strong scent that people describe as onions or raw sewage. According to records, Durian is indigenous to the Borneo and Sumatra islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. It is now cultivated across several other Southeast Asian countries with tropical climates (Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand). Durian is incorporated into recipes for frozen yogurt, cream puffs, tiramisu, and many more desserts.
The research behind the scent of durian is quite fascinating. A Genome project found that the fruit contains 46 thousand genes. There are 50 different compounds that produce the stench, which biologists believe had developed through evolution to attract orangutans for seed dispersal.
https://www.specialtyproduce.com/produce/Durian_619.php