Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well. Please do not attack Democratic candidates or drag primary fights into our community.
As much as it’s not on my dietary schedule, I just tried some Danish Blue (shades of Monty Python’s Cheese Shop) on my breakfast toast.
Limburger and Durian. No, not together, although they share a degree of pungency, in both contexts they allow a media viewer to have a reaction unavailable except in smell-o-vision (John Waters’s Polyester had scratch and sniff cards).
These perceptions are that cinematic sense, not normally available to that experience, but always amusing especially in food and cooking related shows. In media “the smelliest thing” used to be Limburger but is now displaced by Durians, and are about the character’s response transmitted to the viewer indirectly (mediated).
x
Thanks, Bill! The history of Limburger in the US is about immigration, science, insanity, the Three Stooges, the Lindbergh baby, Edmund Wilson, and heavyweight championship wrestling. In short, Limburger cheese is America, and America is Limburger cheese. https://t.co/4koh5Ob30O
Limburger(in southern Dutch contexts Rommedoe, and in Belgium Herve cheese) is a cheese that originated in the Herve area of the historical Duchy of Limburg, which had its capital in Limbourg-sur-Vesdre, now in the French-speaking Belgian province of Liège.The cheese is especially known for its strong smell caused by the bacterium Brevibacterium linens.
A study showing that the malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger and to the smell of human feet earned the Ig Nobel Prize in 2006 in the area of biology.[10][11] The results of the study were published in the medical journal The Lancet on 9 November 1996.
In its first month, the cheese is firmer and more crumbly, similar to the texture offeta cheese. After about six weeks, the cheese becomes softer along the edges but is still firm on the inside and can be described as salty and chalky. After two months of its life, it is mostly creamy and much smoother. Once it reaches three months, the cheese produces its notorious smell because of thebacteriumused to ferment Limburgercheeseand many othersmear-ripened cheeses.[8]This isBrevibacterium linens, the same one found on human skin that is partially responsible forbody odorand particularlyfoot odor.[3]
Limburger and its characteristic odor are a frequent butt of jokes. Reactions to, and misinterpretations of, the smell of Limburger cheese were gags used in numerousLittle RascalsandThree Stoogescomedy shorts. Also, the arch-enemy of theBiker Mice from Marshas the name Lawrence Limburger, complete with terrible body odor.
Actually durian popsicles are OK, much like the US still does need to still get better at appreciating the range of globalized sensations.
Thedurian(/ˈdjʊəriən,ˈdʊr-,–æn/)[2]is the fruit of several treespeciesbelonging to thegenusDurio. There are 30 recognisedDuriospecies, at least nine of which produce edible fruit, with over 300 named varieties in Thailand and 100 in Malaysia, as of 1987.[3][4]Durio zibethinusis the only species available in the international market: other species are sold in their local regions. It is native toBorneoandSumatra.[3]
Sign informing that the durian fruit is not allowed inside Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit
Novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is “like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory”.[45] Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:
its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.[46]
Named in some regions as the “king of fruits”,[5]the durian is distinctive for its large size, strongodour, andthorn-coveredrind. The fruit can grow as large as 30 centimetres (12 inches) long and 15 cm (6 in) in diameter, and it typically weighs 1 to 3 kilograms (2 to 7 pounds). Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the colour of its husk green to brown, and its flesh pale yellow to red, depending on the species.
Some people regard the durian as having a pleasantly sweet fragrance, whereas others find the aroma overpowering with an unpleasant odour. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as rotten onions,turpentine, and raw sewage. The persistence of its odour, which may linger for several days, has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation inSoutheast Asia. By contrast, the nineteenth-century BritishnaturalistAlfred Russel Wallacedescribed its flesh as “a richcustardhighly flavoured withalmonds“. The flesh can be consumed at various stages of ripeness, and it is used to flavour a wide variety of savoury and sweet desserts inSoutheast Asian cuisines. The seeds can also be eaten when cooked.
[…]
In 2019, researchers from theTechnical University of Munichidentifiedethanethioland its derivatives as a reason for its stinky smell. However, the biochemical pathway by which the plant produces ethanethiol remained unclear such as the enzyme that releases ethanethiol.[48]
