Balut (Egg)

This Superbowl Sunday wasn't exactly the typical spread of pizza and chicken wings. John and Tina, a Vietnamese couple, had people over to their new apartment for a seafood extravaganza with snow crab legs, blue crabs, clams, shrimp, and pho. I'm gingerly typing this entry out as I nurse the nicks and cuts on my fingertips, souvenirs from crustaceans determined to pinch even from the grave.

Tina is hard to explain. She's diminutive and cute, and could probably play Tinkerbell in a Vietnamese version of Peter Pan, which is undoubtedly why people call her "Tinabelle."

(Tina cartwheels into the TV room and taps me 46 times.)

Tina: "Dude, you want an egg?"

Me: "Uh...okay?"

Tina: "It's not a normal egg...it's like an embryo."

Me (swoon): "You had me at embryo. What's it called?"

Tina: "I only know what it is in, like, Vietnamese. Whatever. I'm making you one."

(Tina skips into the kitchen, her three-pound rat dog, Yappie, following at her heels.)

I'd heard of balut before, but I'd never seen it in person. Balut is the fertilized egg of a duck or chicken that has reached the embryonic stage but is not yet fully developed. As far as I know, it is not often eaten outside of Southeast Asia (maybe because it's a frickin' embryo), though in areas like Vietnam and the Philippines, balut is enjoyed as an everyday snack. Age is a factor in taste; usually the egg is considered ideal at 17-20 (or more) days after fertilization. Understandably, prenatal foods make Americans squeamish, so I consider myself lucky to find uncooked balut, especially when I wasn't even seeking it out.

(Just a 26-year-old man using a Mr. Eggy baby spoon. NBD.)

The preparation is difficult, but bear with me: boil the egg and serve it piping hot.

True to the cuisine, I ate the egg with a squeeze of lemon, chili sauce, Vietnamese coriander, and salt and pepper.

Strangely enough, balut tastes like...wait for it...an egg! Or, to be more precise, an undercooked egg with some decidedly strange textures. First, there's a little grayish liquid swimming atop, which is to be sipped. What I can only assume are the boiled remains of the chick-to-be rest in the middle of the shell, with the taste of a pungent egg (and maybe a little chicken) and the texture of undercooked scrambled eggs with some sea urchin to boot. There is an off-putting crunch akin to crab lungs, which I came to learn is the underdeveloped cartilage of the duckling. There is also some cooked yolk with thick, maroon veins. Finally, at the bottom, there are some rubbery white leftovers, the texture of a wet racquetball and about as flavorful. The smell is a little on the sulfurous side, though not putrescent the way I'd heard people describe it before.

The chili sauce, citrus, and seasoning are certainly welcome complements to the balut, though the Vietnamese coriander I could do without. Of the small percentage of people who don't like cilantro, a figure in which I do not include myself, the most common complaint is that it carries a "soapy" taste and smell (the cause of which is oddly still a mostly a mystery), which I found prominently in the Vietnamese cousin of the herb. An amusing side note about Vietnamese cilantro is that both my hosts were quick to tell me not to eat too much, as it "makes you a scrub (John)" and "makes your ding-dong not work (Tina)." A quick Wikipedia search revealed that Vietnamese cilantro "is used to repress sexual urges," though I feel like if you're eating duck embryos you probably don't need to much help keeping it in your pants.

In closi--what's that? Balut's an aphrodisiac? Oh, okay. Well, so are jackal bile, skink, ambergris, and seal penis, but I think I'm going to pass on eating them with any sort of regularity. Call me crazy, but there are certain foods that just don't do it for me. And while I'd eat it again, I can throw balut in that category without too much hesitation.