This reminds me that some folks here said that Asian markets should have the exotic tropical fruits that people rave about here, like safus, durian, custard apple and so forth. I diligently checked out all the local Asian and health food markets, hunting down every one I could find, to the tiniest little Asian and Indian markets, and none of them had a single one of these fruits, so no luck here. Even coconuts are considered relatively exotic and sold in very small numbers in this area, LOL.
An even more stark contrast to the tropical-fruit rich areas was the rural inland Ireland of my grandparents' youth. They had never even seen an orange or banana or even an apple until they came to this country. Heck, tropical fruits were largely limited to the tropics until relatively recently, historically speaking, when the development of commercial shipping enabled them to spread to other markets, and the tropical fruit business reportedly didn't really get booming until railways, trucks and refrigeration made it much easier. I wonder if some folks forget just how much things have changed within the last couple centuries.
To satisfy my mad scientist nature, I was forced to order some durian via the Internet some time ago and durian is apparently one of the foods that can take time to adapt to (though it wasn't fresh, of course, so that's probably a factor too). It tasted like fermented onion to me, rather bland and mediocre. Somewhat disappointing, though I had heard some say that it tasted like fermented onion to them and I'm not a big fan of onions, so it wasn't a big shock. Some fans say the taste can be acquired, which I can believe, and that it eventually will taste like yummy ice cream if you keep eating it.
