The Balut Incident
I like to think I’m adventurous. I like to think I’m always up for a new challenge, to push my limits and try new things.
Sometimes that gets me in trouble.
Like when a coworker and I were talking about all the weird and wonderful exotic foods we’d be willing to try, and balut came up.
What’s balut? A fertilized duck egg. Big deal, right? We eat eggs all the time. Except the eggs in the grocery store are just eggs: dormant, neutral, never ever going to be anything else. Fertilized eggs, well…
…they start to develop baby birds.
Squishy, chewy baby birds. Considered a delicacy in places like the Philippines and eaten intact: feathers, beak, and all.
Eaten on Fear Factor in North America.
The next day another coworker happened to bring them in and ate them while the rest of us gathered, horrified, and watched. First Coworker heard about it afterwards and was disappointed he’d missed out. Promises were made for more balut to be obtained, and the next thing you know somehow I had agreed to join in.
I talk a big talk.
Tuesday came, “Egg Day”, and I started having second thoughts. Big, feathery, crunchy thoughts. But I said I’d do it. I tried to quiet my rolling stomach. I didn’t manage breakfast.
I sauntered into DayJob, full of machismo.
Oh, the egg is here? Cool, yeah, I’m totally down. Pffft, it’s just an egg.
And I sat, and I tried to concentrate on my work, and I thought way too long and hard about textures and the probable unpleasantness thereof, and…
I — if you’ll pardon the expression — chickened out. I hadn’t even said I’d eat the thing, just that I’d stuff it in my mouth, but even that was too much. I thought about going through with it anyway; I thought about vomiting in front of my coworkers. Eventually I had to admit defeat and watch as Second Coworker fulfilled his end of the deal and chowed down, proclaiming it “Good” and worthy of eating again.
I have no shame, and I still have my stomach inside where it belongs.
How was your week?
(photo by laurababycake on Instagram)
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