You Don’t Bring Me Flowers
Apr 10th, 2009 by Clare
I love the King of Fruits! Yes, the pungent fruit with thorns on the shell. The strong odour evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. I can virtually see some of you cringe. LOL! One of my best friends’ mother used to say, “If you don’t know how to eat durian, then you don’t know how to eat anything at all.” I tend to agree with her 
because she was referring to my other best friend who would not go near a durian, never mind touching it.
When it comes to durian, nothing is spared from entering my digestive system! Yes, you read that right. Nothing! Not even the flowers 
Chipmunk has a durian tree behind his house and this time round, the flowers are blooming all over the tree that from afar, it looks like sakura . According to his mother, the tree has never sprouted so much flowers, ever!
No you do not have to climb the tree to pluck the flowers. They will drop off the tree by themselves. In order to collect the flowers, spread some huge plastic sheet underneath the tree and leave it overnight. Come morning time, if it was not raining, you can collect them.
Of course you do not eat everything. You have to remove the anthers, leaving only the filament. Only wash the flowers after you have removed the anthers or else it will become sticky, which is also the reason not to collect these flowers if it has been raining.
Contrary to popular beliefs, or rather misconceptions, durian flowers do not have the strong and pungent smell of its fruit.
This is how the flowers look like after the anthers were removed and rinsed, ready to be cooked. There are a lot of ways to cook the durian flowers. My favourite would be cooking it with belacan/sambal udang kering. (Refer here and here for more options)
Since the tree is mass producing the flowers at the moment (read as non-stop), no prize for guessing what I’ll have for dinner next week, or the next. I can have this dish alone with white rice, 3 times a day, no complain. Yes, I love it THAT much!
Sidenote: I am expecting a, “Wow! I didn’t know the flowers can be eaten!” kind of reaction I know a lot of people have never tried this or have no idea about this at all. (STP has blogged about this before and from the comments I can deduce that a lot of people have no idea 
)
PS: Yes, I know what day is today. Read yesterday’s post, this dish was from yesterday!
PS2: My article. This Sunday. The Sunday Post.
PS3: HAPPY EASTER!!!
This is going to be in the papers? Including your reference to poor Chipmunk? Aiyor…so kesian! LOL!!! MY MIL justgave me one whole plastic bag of the flowers…so I’m going to cook the curry version tomorrow. Yum! Yum! LOL!!!
Happy easter Clare! Also…Wow! I didn’t know Durian flowers could be eaten.
Durian Q&A:
So this is what durian trees look like…How tall are Durian trees?
How many Durian can one tree produce?
Can mature fruit fall off the tree and hit you on the head?
Did Chipmunk sell Durians from this tree when he was at school?
Have I asked too many questions and checked wikipedia instead?
it looks like sago plants…
not sure which part of da sago plants la…
No lah. Sago tree is totally different.
I want to shout - Do we still eat durian flowers these days? Ha, ha, I used to eat that when I was young. But, it has been decades that I ever heard of having flowers as food!
Thank you for bringing back some memories - that funny, long forgotten feelings!
Happy Easter.
Oh yes! We still eat durian flowers! They are very delicious! I don’t think the younger generation knows that they can be eaten. Even some from my generation are clueless. They don’t know what they are missing. Hahahaha!
Find more durian in my recipe blog search:
HERE
Happy Easter !!
I’ve eaten that.. Very nice
Happy Easter to you too!
Guess its durian flower season. The durian tree behind my house is also flowering…. and i love to eat it cooked in belacan. yum yum.
So does chipmunk run up the tree to collect the flowers for you? heheh.
No lah! The flowers drop by themselves. Haahahahhahahah!!! Didn’t know chipmunks live on durian tree
[…] conditions, Mother Nature is utterly confused or so it seems. You probably would have seen in Clare’s post in her blog that the durian trees are flowering again…and so have Kpg Nangka Boy’s and […]
Is it true that some matured flowers of the durian should be removed so that the durian tree will not die for having so many fruits during its fruit season? Is it true that the lesser fruit to be developed, the best quality of fruit will be harvested? pls give me additional insights on this quirry for I am so interested on this matter. My tree has just produced fruit flowers for the first time after 8 years. thank you.