Cempedak Part 2

Continuing on from yesterdays blip, this morning I opened the refrigerator door. As the sickly, sweet, pungent smell reached my olfactory receptors, I was forced to step back and quickly close the door to contain the overpowering odor. Too late, closing the door only succeeded in wafting even more of the nefarious niff around the kitchen.

Instinct was telling me to seal the offending object in several air tight bags and hand it over to a passer by, with an agreement not to open within 100 meters of my abode. But I am committed to this blip and intend to follow through and try to report with some professionalism and dignity.

Size ? the fruit is 12? long and has a diameter of 4.5?, rounded at each end. The fruit is very dense and weighs approximately 4Lbs.

Appearance ? showing evidence of its original color of apple green, it has matured to a mustard yellow. Covered in irregular scales, mostly 5 sided, each 5mm across. The scales are shallow pyramids, colored brown at the tips. There is some evidence of bruising, but not unacceptable damage.

Feel ? the texture is obviously rough, but not sharp. Slightly sticky, as a sugary slime has exuded from the stalk end and coated the surface. In one of my previous houses, I had a jackfruit tree in the garden, carrying a couple of fruits that looked very similar, but never harvested, so I know from experience that they are an ant magnet and has probably kept several nests of the little nasties fed. So with this fact in mind, first job will be to wash the fruit.

The skin is not rigid, but has a leathery feel and can be depressed with the fingers. With firm pressure, the surface indents about 4mm and on release, slowly returns to its original shape. It kind of feels how I imagine a dead snake would feel.

Aroma ? well, I think I have pretty much covered this aspect of the cempedaks qualities. The smell is very durian like, but nowhere near as bad, but as most of you would never have experienced durian, the best description I can come up with is sweet rotting vegetation.

The cempedak is a very interesting fruit to hold and examine, quite photogenic even. So I am going to leave you with a detailed blip of the skin surface and pop it back in the fridge after washing and stretch this out to a third blip. Tomorrow I will break out the scalpels and perform an autopsy, to determine the cause of this awful odor and torment the taste buds too. Tune in tomorrow for the third part of the cempedak trilogy.

Dave