BALUT experience

I had an interesting last couple of days here in the Philippines.  On a previous post I said I was going to eat Balut for dinner... My host brother decided to save it for dessert and after dinner we went outside ready to conquer this duck embryo.  Unfortunately, the egg was not yet mature enough so we were not able to eat it.  I was not that disappointed, but I had hyped myself up so much it was kind of a let down.  The topic was put on the back burner for a couple days and I kind of forgot about it.  But, on Thursday my brother went to the city to run some errands.  I am getting ahead of myself tho..  Thursday for lunch I had dinuguan- which is the innards of the pig in a soup with the broth being the blood of the pig.  The smell was much worse than the taste, I actually did not mind it and would be happy to eat it again.  After dinner on Thursday my brother informed me that he had picked up two balut eggs in the city and we would eat them immediately.  So, again we began the process again... we brought out salt, vinegar, and of course I had a tall glass of tubig to help wash it down the hatch.  The process is very tedious, you need to find the top of the egg where the embryos head is located and gently crack the shell.  You then peel away the shell and then you encounter a membrane which then you need to break and then your ready to eat.  (see picture below).  I could see the little head on the embryo which was quite intimidating.  My brother told me to shoot it like a shot of whiskey, but as a judged the size of the egg there was no way I would be able to do that, so that meant chewing.  I threw back the first 1/2 of the egg via shooting technique and got it down rather easily.  The embryo is surrounded by the "yoke" kind of like the yoke on a hard boiled egg.  So there is that solid texture accompanied by the mucus/chewy texture that the duck embryo has.  Then I applied more salt and vinegar and had to dig in with my hands and physically pull out the rest of the embryo/yoke out (see last picture).  I finished the entire thing until there was only the reminisce of the shell.  Took me about 2 mins. from start to finish. I was being routed on by my family and without their support the task might have been futile.   I brought pictures into class the next day and everyone was completely horrified.  Out of the 12 volunteers here I am currently the only one who has 1. tried and 2. finished an entire egg.  I wear this accomplishment like a badge of honor.  So, Thursday was the most interesting culinary experience of my life and I have lived to tell about it.  So, I encourage you all out there to try balut if you are every afforded the opportunity.  They said it is good for your joints...haha not quite sure how but this is the Philippines, dont ask questions just eat.
Cheers-

Robert

My brothers egg, left.  My egg, right








the egg (vinegar in the bottle)







EXTREME CLOSE UP








The last quarter of the duck embryo mmmmm