Durian Delight and Feijoa Fun: Adventures in Banned, Forgotten, and Unusual Fruit

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Gastropod, a feast of fruits! Specifically, feijoa and durian—and, if you haven’t heard of either, you’re not alone. Unlike the ubiquitous strawberry or banana, durian and feijoa are only popular in a handful of countries and almost unknown in the US, and we wanted to know why—especially because the people who love them really love them. For New Zealanders, like journalist Kate Evans, feijoa is *the* taste of home, even though it's almost forgotten in its original homeland, in Brazil and Uruguay. Meanwhile, the smell of the durian is so intense and distinctive—Julia Child likened it to “dead babies mixed with strawberries and Camembert”—that it's famously banned from public transportation in Singapore. But for durian lovers, like the cancer expert who decoded the fruit's genome, it inspires something close to obsession. Join us this episode for a weird fruit adventure, as we discover why the durian and feijoa inspire such strong feelings, and why they never made it big in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We are passionate about exotic fruits and guarantee a worry-free shopping experience.
0:07.0	Leave your name and phone number and our customer service team will reach out to you within 24 hours.
0:13.0	Your satisfaction is our priority.
0:16.0	This is me hitting another dead end on the trail of a fruit that can be kind of hard to get hold of here in the U.S.
0:24.4	I also had a hard time finding a fresh one.
0:26.6	The first two places I called only had frozen.
0:29.1	The third place I called, their website had almost no English on it, and the person who answered the phone struggled to understand me.
0:35.2	Hi, do you carry fresh, Duran?
0:43.3	Yes. D-U-R-I? Yes, D-U-R-I.
0:44.9	Yes, D-U-N.
0:49.8	A few phone calls later, I ended up tracking down the goods, too.
0:54.6	My durian dealer texted me pictures of a couple of options to choose between.
0:55.8	Check out this durian.
0:59.6	$110.70.
1:02.3	I guess it is.
1:06.0	Well, I can't actually read how heavy it is in Chinese.
1:07.4	We were undaunted.
1:10.1	We were determined to get a hold of a fresh durian. We, of course, are gastropod,
1:11.7	the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I'm Cynthia Graber.
1:15.2	And I'm Nicola Twilly. And this is an episode about, how shall I put this, fruit that is not
1:21.8	normal, at least here in the U.S. These are fruits that are deeply beloved in some places and totally unknown or even
1:30.1	kind of feared in others. The durian is one, it's a fruit probably most of you have at least
	...

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