Quick! Someone better tell Sarko integration is working!

So on Saturday I had a meeting in the banlieues followed by lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant in Belleville (more on all that in a second). After lunch, however, was when things got interesting. There was an international grocery store near the entrance to the subway, so I decided to go in and have a look around.

And that's when I found something I've been wanting to try for years, ever since I read an article about them in the NY Times: a durian. More info available here. I had seen them in my local grocery store in Astoria but was scared off by a fundamental problem: they reek. The article that originally piqued my interest was in fact all about the smell of the durian fruit, which apparently tastes waaaaaay better than it smells. But there's a movement underway in the Philippines to use genetic engineering to remove the smell, and there's a huge debate going on about whether a durian is still a durian if it doesn't smell like ass.

Anyway, here in the frozen foods aisle was a dessert made with sticky rice, coconut milk, and durian. And dairy-free! Yes!

So I smugly went up to the cash register to buy my durian dessert, and this is where things took a turn for the hilarious. The cashier was very clearly of Asian origin, and because his French was near-native, I'm going to guess he was Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Laotian. He took one look at my selection and was like, "oh yum, durian!" To which I was like, "yes, I've never had it and I've been curious." He told me how great they were, so I said I was particularly curious ever since I read this article, and I told him about the genetic engineering movement. He was totally HORRIFIED. This was clearly a personal offense on the durian fruit, and he was like, "but no! durian is like a fine cheese! you cannot appreciate it without the smell!" At which point he went on a long comparison of the finer nuances of the durian smell and how it lines up with nuances in the smells of cheeses. He kept everyone else in line waiting while he went through a point by point comparison and went on about how you really need to appreciate the durian in the same way as you would a fine cheese, first through the smell and then by the taste.

Which is why I now say, to anyone who thinks immigrants aren't becoming French: bullshit. Just go ask the random cashier in Belleville about the durian fruit, and you'll see, doesn't get any more French than that!

Sadly, after all that, I'm not a huge fan of the durian. Maybe I still need to try a fresh one. The dessert was fine, but the fruit...not so much. It does indeed reek and it does indeed taste better than that, but it still wasn't doing it for me. But I didn't really care, after the performance I got at the grocery store!!!