Balut

balut an oriental delicacy particularly associated with the Philippines, is a boiled fertilized duck’s egg, and is savoured for the variety of textures within: the broth, the very young chick, the yolk. It is eaten by cracking the top of the shell, sprinkling a little salt within, and sipping the broth, then opening the whole egg and eating the rest with rock salt.

The Chinese are said to have brought to the Philippines the idea of eating duck eggs at this stage of maturity. The process has, however, been indigenized, and is now done (in towns like Pateros, in Rizal) in very native ways. Eggs delivered to the balut-maker (mangbabalut) are laid under the sun briefly to remove excess moisture and to bring them to the ideal warmth for keeping alive the zygote within. The eggs are then taken to a garong, a deep wooden trough lined with rice husks, in which are set bamboo-skin baskets (tuong) lined with paper and husk and wrapped in cowhide. Into these baskets are placed the eggs, separated in 100-egg sacks of netting (tikbo). The eggs are kept warm in these sacks by a system of transferring each tikbo from one tuong to another twice a day, thus keeping the warmth even. Eggs at the bottom of the basket are warmest, those on top the coolest, and the transferring evens this out.