Durian was back at the KCC Saturday Farmers Market last week. We noticed it rather late, and probably all the good ones were already gone. What was left in the box were a few smaller and misshapen ones. By misshapen I mean that there were fewer than five lobes (sections) on the fruit. One looked like it had only three, and a really small specimen might have had only one or two sections (the picture above shows a full fruit, and the cutaway shows two sections, each with three seeds and the pulp).

The problem with buying a fruit with less than the full number of sections is that you're probably paying a high price for just husk. It's a pretty expensive fruit.

In Singapore, for example, those fruits would be sold at a deep discount. Actually, one haggles over the price, so the seller and buyer would agree at something less than they would if the fruit was fat and round and complete.

I don't know what they are doing at the KCC market--before my eyes, all the remaining fruit was snatched up. So if there was no discount built-in already, buyers were getting less perhaps than they hoped for. If you look at a few fruits you'll see that each section bulges out a bit, so you can get an idea if they are all there or not. Getting to the tent early also seems like a good strategy, so you have some choice.

Besides the articles I've posted here earlier, there is lots of new and interesting information on the Web. Google for it. Here is the Wikipedia entry, and here is an article with some creative ways to eat durian.