"Most disgusting of all was the rush [by starving POWs] for the durian nuts [discarded by the Japanese guards]. Of all the fruits in the world, the durian is surely one of the most delicious. Growing on high trees, about the size of a melon, it contains within its tough prickly exterior, kernels the size of chestnuts, surrounded by a soft, sticky, whitish substance. It is this latter substance that possesses the truly wonderful, but indescribable taste, approaching nearest to a concoction of banana and sweetened condensed milk with a haunting flavour that might be onions but which is not. The drawback of the durian is its smell, not only existing in the fruit but residual - stronger by far than pickled onions - so that Europeans never eat them normally, except when out of contact with their countrymen or at special durian parties. The natives believe them to harbour aphrodisiac properties. Perhaps that is why the Japanese ate them. .... However, they enjoyed the fruit. Having sucked away the sticky flesh, they spat out the nuts. Thereupon a few men, mainly the garbage fiends, [the men who scavenged for food on rubbish heaps] would scramble for them. Sometimes they even transferred the nuts straight to their own mouths .... always the nuts were, for ultimate consumption, later baked over a fire."