What happens to durian when there is too much

Tempoyak and other preserves turned seasonal gluts into food, while Orang Asli links to durian are documented mainly through land disputes.

Durian arrives in a rush, and communities long ago found ways to keep it. The best known is tempoyak, a Malay condiment made by crushing the flesh with salt or sugar and leaving it closed at room temperature for three to seven days. According to Wikipedia's summary of the research, lactic acid bacteria do the work, souring the paste and holding back spoilage organisms.

Few people eat it alone. It goes into gulai tempoyak ikan patin, a fish curry with coconut milk, and into sambal tempoyak with chilli. In Kelantan, Wikipedia's durian entry says, it is mixed with onion, chilli, lime juice and the anchovy sauce budu to accompany rice. The name changes by place: tempoyak in the Peninsula and Borneo, pekasam in Aceh, asam durian among the Minangkabau.

The habit is old. Wallace noted salted durian kept all year in jars and bamboo, a relish that Dyaks prized with rice even though he thought Europeans would find the odour awful. Sweet preserves also exist; Wikipedia lists dodol and lempuk among durian confections, though we found little detailed sourcing on lempuk itself.

Orang Asli durian customs proved harder to document from pages we could open. A University of Nottingham thesis listing on the Temuan people, tagged with durian, customary practice and agroforestry, shows the subject is being studied. The news reports we could open concern land instead: Malay Mail, citing the South China Morning Post in 2019, reported Temiar activist Mustafa Along describing blockades in Gua Musang against land clearing for durian planting.

What happens to durian when there is too much

Sources

More stories

Know when the fruit is falling