Fruits like bananas and pineapples have become so common-place in the Netherlands that many people do not realise how exotic they were to those overseas who tasted them for the very first time. Sampling unfamiliar fruits was part of the Indies tourist experience. Especially fascinating was the durian. The fruit with its prickly rind was famous for its distinctive taste but it was also notorious for its pungent, sickening smell. Justus van Maurik was not taken with it: ‘I cannot express the flavour of durian any better than by saying that I tasted fish, red cabbage, Limburg cheese and asafoetida (devil’s dung), mixed with sugar, some vanilla and sour cream.’ Nowadays, it is forbidden in Indonesia to open the fruit in a supermarket.
1. A durian seller at a roadside in Batavia, around 1910. [KITLV 183673]
2. Durian and other tropical fruit at a market in Bogor, around 1980-1990. [KITLV 55870]