Like the bewildered customers in the video, many netizens seemed unsure about the appeal of such dishes, calling them “crazy” and “just plain”.
One commenter on Facebook said, “Looking at it makes me want to throw up.”
“Will I get poisoned if I eat this?” another person asked.
One Facebook user said his blood sugar levels would definitely “spike” after eating such a dish, adding: “Durian is already a sugary fruit. Still, adding sugar, adding strawberries, it’s a wala !Won’t this spoil the original flavor?” Durian’s…? ”
The top comment on this post agreed: “Personally, I think the deliciousness of durian is being wasted. The best way to eat durian is directly from the shell.”
“I finally understand how Italians feel when they see pineapple on their pizza,” one person joked to vent their discomfort.
According to the video peddler, the recipe (which he calls a “trade secret”) was given to him by his cousin from southern China’s Guangxi Autonomous Region. At 48 Chinese yuan (S$9) per cup, it sells five to six cups a day.
A similar video posted last Monday on Douyin, the Chinese version of the short-form video platform TikTok, shows a nearly identical conversation between another customer and a peddler.
“I heard it’s a very popular snack,” user “Genius Yawen” shared in the caption.
It’s unclear if it’s the same peddler, but the ingredients and cooking method appear to be almost the same, except for the addition of green chili and cumin. This peddler also calls himself the “cousin of Guangxi” and charges 48 Chinese yuan for his snacks.
In Douyin’s video, a peddler even tells a customer that his cousin, who lives in Guangxi, “has a (cooked) snack every three days and a meal every seven days.”
However, despite the popularity of this snack, Chinese netizens themselves also flocked to the comments to make fun of it. As of Monday afternoon, the video had 1,200 likes, 430 comments, 240 saves and 11,000 shares.
Still, many were amazed at the generous portions of durian they were given and said they would not be able to buy the same amount of fresh durian anywhere else for such a low price.
Some even offered to pay more for just the unprocessed durian, teasing them by saying, “There’s no need to process it. That’s lucky for you!”
One Douyin user joked, “My cousin in Guangxi said he won’t take responsibility (for this matter).”
But on Facebook, some users suggested an equally unusual way to eat durian at home, citing the Malay condiment tempoyak, a fermented durian paste used to combat durian overproduction. He pointed out that there was one nearby.
Tempoyak is commonly used in Malaysian and Indonesian curries and sauces, and can also be found in Singapore.
Last May, the “king of fruits” became a hot topic on Chinese microblogging site Weibo, with many Chinese netizens sharing their own unique ways to eat it.
These included salting and steaming the fruit and combining it with instant noodles.
