August 15, 2012
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The strangest thing I ever ate….a ‘balut’.
BALUT
My little grandson told his sister to go eat a booger sandwich the other day and that got me to thinking; what is the strangest thing I’ve even ingested? I’ve had a lot of years to be adventurous and God knows I’ve consumed more food than some third world villages. I’ve had escargot slug snacks and fish eggs with donkey cheese and things out of the ocean that would make a vulture barf!
But……I believe the strangest thing I have ever consumed was a “balut.” I spent three weeks in the Philippines many years ago and there were only three things a young man did there. Drink, discuss Einstein’s theories with the female bar patrons and drink some more. It was during one of these ‘drink some more’ evenings that I was introduced to the famous balut.
The balut is a fertilized duck egg, incubated or allowed to grow within the shell for a certain length of time, usually a few weeks. The egg is then boiled for a few minutes and then placed in a large jar with a few of his cousins and soaked in brim (that’s a vinegar urine kinda mixture). These large jars, containing several generations of inert quackers, are then sold in the local bars.
The idea is to get drunk enough so that your buddies dare you to eat one and everybody knows that a beer induced challenge is sacred in all countries and domains. After slamming down one more beer, you take a balut and peel back the shell and there you will find a soft-boiled eggy interior and the small inert body of a fetal duck……small bones, feathers, beak and all. Making an effort not to analyze the morsel too closely, you take it in with two eager bites and chew like hell! The impact of feeling tiny duck feathers caressing the lining of your throat as the vomitation goes down is beyond description. As the abomination finally reaches the depths of your gut and splashes into your internal reservoir of cheap beer, your eyes quickly bulge and begin to water. People back away from you. As embryonic slime dribbles down the corner of your mouth, you finally become aware of what you’ve done. It is not a good moment and it has lasted me to this day.
For the next twenty years I subsisted primarily on waffles or Danish for breakfast. This story is a good one and my kids and their kids never get tired of me telling it because normally during the narration, I still get a little pale, my eyes water and I droll.
CHARLIE
Comments (12)
you discussed einstein? dang. they got smart whores there then
all kidding aside, ehem, i’ve never had balut. i would like to try it one day. i have had dog though
@bonmots - I had rather have dog on-a-stick, than eat a balut again.
I was grossed out reading it! I would have to be beyond hammered to even get near one. Lol. I saw someone eat them on tv not long ago and didn’t even make it threw a full bite!
LOL. You are a brave. brave man. I don’t believe I could even poke that with a fork.
@AllTrades - Gives scrambled eggs a whole different appeal.
@Erika_Steele - When you’re young, stupid and drunk….you’ll do most anything.
@UncCharlie - I think you need to add and have a Y chromosome to that. My male friends did that stuff while we cheered them on. Maybe if I were drunk I’d poke it with a fork and then convince the nearest drunken man that he should eat it.
My dad was stationed in the Philippines during WW2, so you, my dad, and the strange guy on the travel channel all have the dubious honor of eating something that would make me hurl good booze for several yards. Hat’s off to ya bro!
OMG… feeling nasueous now. *SHUDDERS*
@UncCharlie - i will never eat scrambled eggs again! AHHH
As a warm up you can try thousand year old eggs (really not that old). They can slice them up and put it into rice gruel and that makes a tasty meal.
Then there is the devil’s bean cake. What they do is heat up a pot with some loaches (fish that appear in ponds that dry out during summer, they dig into the mud and survive in the mud during summer). As the water heats they put in the bean cake and they dig right into the bean cake. Hence the loaches put themselves into the bean cakes before the pot comes to a boil.
Hello Dear,
My name is Boots and I came across your profile when I was searching for a balut-swilling get-yer-freak-on friend. Don’t bother contacting me cuz I ain’t gonna send you any(more) pictures of me eating weird things. I’m also not going to retype this in french, even though I probably could if I applied myself.
Thanks and have a lovely day,
Your old friend,
Boots xo