No No No No No
So my search for unusual foods in Asia continues, I say unusual until I found this, which is nothing short of, in my opinion, sheer ‘yukdom’.
Have you ever heard of a ‘treat with feet’ or ‘an egg with legs’? Well before I go into further detail, lay back, close your eyes and see what you can imagine. Now vision something you might see in your nightmares and you still won’t be close, even the ’Sandman’ couldn’t have thought of this one.
This horror food is called Balut and is a favorite snack of the Philippines, a country that ‘was’ on my bucket list to visit! So what is this nightmare snack?
Balut is a fertilized egg, usually Mallard duck eggs, that are buried in the ground anywhere between 17-21 days until the embryo has nearly developed, it is then hard boiled and eaten in its shell, served usually with beer. Diners believe it is the perfect balance of flavor and texture.
Why oh why would you? Not even a beer would wash this sucker down for me! Apparently the bones are soft enough to chew too, it just gets worse! It has now conjured up a new meaning to me for an Easter Egg, as ‘Chucky’ did to all little girls who owned dolls!
The taste is apparently a little like chicken, once and if, you can get your head around what you are eating, but for me it’s a certain ‘No no no…no way, no how’. I remember cracking an egg into a bowl of flour when making bread, out popped a foul (no pun intended) rotten stinking embryo. I threw up and still buy our bread 20 years later!
There is quite some controversy over this wee snack with animal right activists expressing their disgust as they feel this is cruel. Staying out of politics on here, all I can say is I’m pretty sure my stomach would think it’s cruel to eat this!
‘A treat with feet’, well for me it would be a case of ‘fleet with feet’ and darn fast, pretty sure I could walk on water to get away from this one!
