Lesson #13: Slurp, Crunch, Swallow... If You Can

Best enjoyed with, or most likely, after many, many, many beers.... this is Balut.... the fertilized, half formed fetus of a duck or chicken, considered a "delicacy" that has been called "the treat with feet" or "the egg with legs".  The heart of culinary darkness.   Now, I have eaten chicken feet at the finest dim sum restaurants....I have eaten raw eggs... I have even joked about the trend of "micro" everything in the finest restaurants by having the disturbing desire to try preparing baby ducklings after seeing a row of them follow their mama, asking my friend and fellow chef if he thought "Microducks" would taste good and sell in my fine dining restaurant. But Balut?  I tried it.... I really really did.... I just, well.... couldn't finish it. Balut is considered Street Food in Southeast Asia... a form of "Dirty Water Hot Dog" as you will.... which, if you are a man, and on your way to visit a lady friend, is the utmost form of Viagara you can ingest.... or so they say.... The same has been said of deer penises and bird's nest soup, as in the $100 bowl of soup one can purchase of a "Nest of Sea Swallows with Venomous Snake and Chrysanthemum Petals"...  Uhhh... yeah.  Back to Balut... Recipe: 1) Take a fertilized duck or chicken egg (Preferably 19-21 days, old enough to be recognizable as a furry little creature) 2) Soft Boil It (the somewhat formed bones stay somewhat crunchy but somewhat tender) 2) Bury it in sand to keep in warm (i mean, why on earth would you eat a cold 1/2 fertilized egg anyway?) 3) Hold the balut upright and, with the underside of a spoon, make a crack at the top of the egg. 4) Chip away pieces of eggshell with your fingers 5) Pierce the gauzy membrane 6) Inspect the "broth"... this is amniotic fluid. 7) Tip the egg to your mouth and suck out this fluid 8) Continue removing the eggshell.... You may then see an undifferentiated mass of stuff...slightly runny, with veins running through it... 9) Dip the stuff in the salt and eat it 10) Find the fetus.  Pick it up by the head, dip it into salt, and pop its little legs in your mouth. 11) Chew the little beak, feel the tiny feathers on your tongue... try and swallow. 12) Drink lots and lots of beer. 13) Enjoy! (oooohhhh lucky #13) Superman had Kryptonite.... I, a mere human,  have Balut...