It goes without saying that Durians aren’t exactly everyones cup of tea. The thorny fruit comes with a heavy pungent odour that lets be honest, is quite Indescribable.
Famed food and travel writer Richard Sterling once described the odour as “turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock” while Anthony Bourdain went as far as to say that “your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother” after eating the fruit.
In spite of that, the fruit is absolutely loved by many people, especially in Asia. For white people however, they’re not exactly exposed to Durian very often given that the fruit is native to Southeast Asian equatorial rainforests, and needs much tropical warmth, moisture, and sunshine to thrive.
Instances of white people vs durian always ends up being freaking hilarious. Like the time more than 500 students from a University in Melbourne, Australia were evacuated because of the smell of rotten durian. I mean, yes they thought it was a gas leak and that’s a rather serious thing but no one got hurt in the end so its all G.
The latest instalment in the white people vs durian series comes from the town of Schweinfurt in Germany. A so called “mystery” package that had a pungent odour left 12 German postal workers requiring medical treatment, with the entire post office being evacuated.
CNN reports that not just the police, but firefighters and emergency services were called in to the scene to investigate the source of the pungent smell that was coming from the package. In fact, a total of six ambulances, five first-responder cars and two emergency vehicles showed up at the scene.
Unsure whether or not the package posed a threat, 60 odd post office staff were asked to evacuate the building so that the authorities could examine the package.
So they opened the package and it turned out to be four Thai durians. The smell was apparently so foreign to them that 12 postal workers complained of nausea and had to be treated by medical personnel at the scene.
Stay tuned for the next instance of white people vs durians, which i’m sure will inevitably happen again.
