Photo Hunt#60 My Favorite Fruit, Durian

Photo Hunt is having a free theme this week. So, I decided to show my favorite fruit that is described as "smells like hell, tastes like heaven", the durian.

Davao City is known for having a lot of fruits all year round but the city is more known for its malodorous fruit, durian. For a local like me, I actually find the durian smell heady and enticing; not surprising as it is known as an aphrodisiac.

It used to be that having this fruit is considered burgoise or burgis as it was really expensive at P120-P150 per kilo including its shell that only the rich can really afford to buy it. It was also only easily available during the months of August until October.

Thanks to science, propagation of the fruit has become easier and it is now available all-year round. Traditionally though, its harvest peak is still on the months of August up to October.

This year has been touted with the highest yield which brought the durian prices down to P15-P20 for the varieties of native, Puyat and Arancillo in the month of September alone. Ubiquitous durian carts can be seen in every corner of the city and the low prices made the durian quite affordable even to the most ordinary Juan and Maria.

There are several durian varieties available such as the native variety, Arancillo, Puyat, Montong, Cobb and Chani but the most popular are the first three varieties mentioned. Personally, am a native variety fan with its bittersweet taste, sticky and creamy durian meat. I could actually eat the whole regular sized native durian fruit if I want to.

As the harvest is getting leaner this month of October, the prices of durian per kilo is now at P35-40 per kilo.

This is my entry for:

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Where Are My Durians?

Yesterday, Sunday morning, after having our tennis session, Anne and me went to the SM Davao Agro Fair. We checked out their orchids and other ornamental plants on display and for sale (I will post some pictures here later). When we saw a durian stall, we hurriedly get to it, intent on eating some durian. Imagine our surprise to hear that the Arancillo variety costs P70 per kilo! What??! It can’t be. It is still harvest season for durian, it should be somewhere P40-50 only. The storeowner apologized and said that the harvest for this year is quite low and slow(which I cannot refute as usually fruits can be found in every streets in our city but nowadays, you can only find some trickle). So, off we go, giving up buying durian and with the hope that the harvest gets to improve before this year ends.