Eat food. Not too much. Mostly balut.

A couple years ago, when Andrew Zimmern and his Bizarre Foods had become popular, there were several internet memes circulating… lists of what foods you had and had not tried. Of all the lists, the only food I swore I’d never try was balut. Balut, if you don’t know, is a duck egg which has been fertilized, and the chick is partially developed (18 days). It is a popular food in the Philipines, but to me, and most Americans, it was scary. I imagined feathers, and a little beak…. a cute tiny little duckie baby… I can’t eat that!

Apparently I’ve changed a lot in the past year or so. I told a friend at work, who was born in the Philipines, that I wanted to try balut. Well, a couple of days ago, she delivered two of these mythical eggs to me. I contacted the FBM right away… there were 2! Which one of my bitches would be willing to try one with me? And video tape it!! As it turns out, none of them were game. Wussies. So Kelly sweet talked her fiance, Jerad into it. Yup. Jerad and me, we’ll put anything in our mouths.

Hey Jerad! Yer Doin' it wrong!

The day before, I prepared myself. I watched this instructional video about how to cook and how to eat balut. I watched this clip from Bizarre Foods, where Andrew Zimmern actually makes it sound quite tasty and not-so-scary. I watched a Tony Bourdain balut clip. I think Bourdain is the bees knees, so to see him eat balut with little reaction gave me confidence. I was ready for this. I was actually looking forward to it! I decided that it was probably gonna taste pretty good, like chicken soup and a hard boiled egg… though it would look like a horror movie.

Balut before boiling. As you can see by the egg carton, they are slightly bigger than chicken eggs.

There are tons of videos on the interwebs of people eating balut and being disgusted, gagging, even puking. But a whole country of people eat this delicacy every day! It can’t really be that bad… those people are just being dramatic… right? I wanted to give balut a chance. It’s part of a culture. I didn’t want to hurl on that. Jerad was pretty scared, though. Puss.

So enough buildup… how’d we do? Let’s check the videos!

That’s right. Dead Baby Duck for the Soul.

Jerad used the Fear Factor Method of eating his really fast. I’ll have to admit, these were pretty gross looking. But, since I had to blog about it, I had to actually examine mine and taste it…

So there you have it. The anti-climactic balut. Either people totally over-react to these things, or my friend gave me “White People-friendly” ones that had been stopped earlier so they were smaller and without feathers/crunchy parts. If all balut are like these, I would eat them again… that yolk was custardy and rich, and really good with the simple vinegar dipping sauce (sliced chili pepper and garlic in distilled white vinegar). And the tiny baby duck did taste like duck or chicken liver that was quite well cooked. Finger-lickin’ good!

*shrugs* sorry we didn’t puke for you.

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