This week on Gastropod, a feast of fruits! Specifically, feijoa and durian—and, if you haven’t heard of either, you’re not alone. Unlike the ubiquitous strawberry or banana, durian and feijoa are only popular in a handful of countries and almost unknown in the US, and we wanted to know why—especially because the people who love them really love them. For New Zealanders, like journalist Kate Evans, feijoa is *the* taste of home, even though it's almost forgotten in its original homeland, in Brazil and Uruguay. Meanwhile, the smell of the durian is so intense and distinctive—Julia Child likened it to “dead babies mixed with strawberries and Camembert”—that it's famously banned from public transportation in Singapore. But for durian lovers, like the cancer expert who decoded the fruit's genome, it inspires something close to obsession. Join us this episode for a weird fruit adventure, as we discover why the durian and feijoa inspire such strong feelings, and why they never made it big in the States.

Episode Notes

Kate Evans

New Zealand journalist Kate Evans is the author of Feijoa: A Story of Obsession and Belonging, now available in the US.

Bin Tean Teh

Bin Tean Teh is the deputy CEO of the National Cancer Center of Singapore and the founding director of the Institute of Biodiversity Medicine, a joint initiative by Singapore Health Services and Duke-NUS Medical School. His paper on the durian's genome is available here.

Thi Nguyen

Thi Nguygen is a PhD student in Film & Media Studies and American Studies at Yale University. She wrote about the durian's colonial history in an article for Saigoneer.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics

This episode of Gastropod was supported by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics. Check out the other books, movies, shows, podcasts, and more that they support here.