“the egg of ultimate darkness”
Dec 28, 2008 general food, groceries
Although (as mentioned before) it’s firmly planted in the unique category of foods I actually won’t try even once, the Southeast Asian delicacy balut fascinates me. Traditionally Balut is a hard-boiled duck egg with a fertilized and mostly-developed embryo. I first witnessed it when the parents of a Filipina girl I was dating told me it was customary for anyone wanting to marry into a Filipino family to consume one. When they were described to me as “crunchy hard-boiled eggs,” and that “sometimes there are some feathers,” I happily refused.
For those of you also intrigued by balut–and I know that’s some of you as I’ve gotten emails wondering where to pick them up locally–I stumbled across a blog post by some St. Louis Atheists that documented their escapade with some of the better balut photos I’ve seen–by better I mean most disgusting.
And of course, a tasty excerpt:
Most Americans will tell you that the first time you eat balut, it helps if you don’t think about exactly what you’re eating. Screw that. I knew what I was eating. I stared into it’s little cloudy eyes. I gently pulled open its beak and looked at the little tongue inside. Then, I put it in my mouth and felt what my eyes had already seen.
Tags: balut, no fucking way
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December 30th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
You can get them from Jay’s International Market on S. Grand.
I tried to make a balut over easy.. that didn’t work so well.