Friday, November 30, 2007 The slowest durian openers in the world By Rene Lizada Papa's Table
WE WERE tired and we wanted to go home. The traffic was slow and to make matters worse it was starting to rain. People were scurrying all over the place. I just wanted to go home. I just had a day filled with meetings and the only thing I wanted to do was to plop in bed and just go to sleep.
The radio was playing something, I really did not care about the song. Gabo was at the back slowly nudging off and my wife was about to doze off when she saw something. Actually she saw several things. In her weariness or despite of it, she suddenly exclaimed, "durian!" I almost jumped out of my fatigue when I heard my beloved wife say, "durian!" Gabo suddenly woke up to the sound of "durian!"
My wife suddenly was alive, all work related tiredness suddenly gone like the gust of wind. "Masarap lagi mag kain ng durian." In the twenty or so years that we have been married I have now the ability to discern an order from a request and this was definitely not a request.
And so I turned the car left and crossed Boulevard into Jacinto street.
Because there in the sidewalk lay the durian that my wife somehow saw through the darkness. I think when it comes to durian my wife has night vision.
I had a difficult time parking because these guys were practically selling the durian in the middle of the street. But I was able to park somehow. In front of me was a rather huge PUJ. In it were two people, the driver and his equally gigantic wife I was presuming. The wife stepped down and I swear the PUJ lifted.
And much to my horror she stepped in front of their monster vehicle and guided the husband driver closer and closer to me. I mean what was this woman thinking. There was some space at the back of their vehicle but the woman wanted to park close to where we were.
She guided the driver with hand signals until their vehicle was practically kissing the front of our car. I wanted to shout at the lady but I was afraid of her size. After he had invaded my privacy he went down and went meekly with his elephant of a wife.
Then it was durian time. I was too tired to step down of the car as I usually do when we buy durian because my wife trusts my taste for durian so much that I alone determine if it is fit for her consumption! But I told my wife that I was simply too tired. "Dito na lang ako sa kotse." I told her.
She opened the window and we both peered into the stack of the smallest durian fruits I had ever seen. My wife asked how much. The man answered it was selling for 25 pesos per kilo. I wanted to back out because this durian looked like they had been picked from malnourished trees. But my wife wanted to eat durian.
And so we asked the man to look for bigger fruits. We also said we just wanted the "native." And so the man started searching in his pathetic pile. After about five minutes he found durian that were quite big. Do not ask me how he did that but he did find "decent" durian.
Then he looked for more and more did he find durian of the native kind. My wife was gleefully watching the treasures unfold before her eyes. We said that we wanted this much worth of durian and he got some rambutan, I mean durian and weighed all of them. They were enough and now it was time for the tasting.
But before the tasting there was of course the opening. And that is the point of this article.
I mean I have seen people open durian so fast that I was left breathless.
I mean some people are so good at it that they just look at the fruit once and they determine where the lines are and they hack and slice and slice and hack in a matter of seconds.
But these people along Jacinto were a different breed because aside from the size of their durian what set them apart was the speed in which they opened the durian.
These people were definitely the slowest durian openers in the world.
These people were not just slow they were actually boring. But we had no choice we had to endure the wait.
I guess the first problem they had was that the guy opening the durian was barefoot.
Rule Number One: When opening durian never be barefoot unless you want to have thorns piercing your feet. And then Rule Number Two comes in. Use a big knife or bolo or whatever to open the durian. I really do not care but make sure it is big, malaki, daku! This barefoot guy from Jacinto had what looked like a bread knife.
Rule Number Three. Know where to slice. I think he had no idea where to slice. I mean he was staring at the durian; the durian was staring back as if they had a staring contest.
In the meantime while this was going on I was staring at my wife who was staring at the durian which was staring at the man who was about to open the durian.
Finally, after about three turns of the moon the man finally was able to open...one. He gave the durian to me through the window and I was able to finally taste it.
This process of staring slicing and showing the fruit lasted until the early morning.
Finally we were done. After paying the slow butcher of Jacinto I had another problem. How was I going to extricate myself from the parking because the gigantic wife and her husband had parked their monster PUJ in front of me.
But God is good because as I was about to do my maneuver I saw a giant shadow fall over the entire street. She was back! And with her return was our parking salvation. She stepped behind the PUJ and guided her husband as he backed the Godzilla like vehicle. Freedom! Freedom!
We got home exhausted. We had dinner and we had durian. It was actually good. It had to be good because if it were not I would have to go back and complain and I really did not want to do that because if I complained he might offer us another batch which he would have to open. And that would take another two years to open and besides I might just meet that woman again.
