My new favorite "eating" place!

[reeb]

Balut: Fertilized duck eggs and their role in filipino culture


Doreen Fernandez in "The World of Balut"

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This essay illustrates how consumption of one particular food, fertilized duck eggs, can reveal the interplay between food, beliefs, culture and history. Called balut in the Philippines or hot vit lon in Vietnam, fertilized duck eggs are also familiar in the food customs of Chinese, Laotians, Cambodians and Thais. Socio-cultural factors, not just nutritional reasons dominate its consumption. Using historical and literary sources, as well as fieldwork data culled from 25 balut eaters, two balut distributors and a duck farmer as well, I will explore what it is about balut that makes eating it desirable. Why ingest something that may already have bones, feathers and a beak? For Filipino and other Asian Americans, there are alternative sources of protein, (which is not the case for many in the Philippines who do not have the luxury of choice).

"Eating is usually a more complicated function than just taking nourishment" wrote food scholar Kurt Lewin. The complexities involved in the eating of balut, or any other food for that matter, has since been explored by a number of folklorists and anthropologists. Food scholarship has ranged from food as a semiotic system (Theophano 1991; Douglas 1966 & 1972; Weismantel 1988), to how consumption is tied to psychological and economic factors (Lewin 1942; Richards 1932), to the way food defines ethnicity (Brown and Mussell 1984; Georges 1984; Kalcik 1984). However, much of the debate between food scholars is between the materialists, led by Marvin Harris and Marshall Sahlins, and symbolic theorists such as Mary Douglas and Claude Levi-Strauss. Harris agrees that food may have symbolic meaning, but before anything else, "food must nourish the collective stomach before it can feed the collective mind" and whatever foods are eaten, "are foods that have a more favorable balance of practical benefits over costs than foods that are avoided (bad to eat)" (Harris 1985:15). For Douglas, however, food embodies a code, and the messages in it can be seen in "the pattern of social relations" (1972:61). Who is being excluded or included can be gleaned from the food categories and meal patterns; for example, drinks are reserved for strangers and acquaintances while meals are for intimate friends and family (Douglas 66).

In the case of balut, both symbolic and material explanations can illuminate the reasons why people would eat embryonic duck eggs. Although it is always eaten boiled, and never raw, eating balut requires the consumption of something in the fetal stage, and psychological, cultural, and socio-economic factors must all be considered. Generally sold late at night or early morning, balut is consumed by Filipino males for its alleged aphrodisiac properties, while women eat it for reasons such as energy and nutrition, but never as a sexual stimulant. As one informant put it bluntly, balut as an aphrodisiac is "para lang sa lalaki ito" (it is just for men).

Eaten usually as a snack, and not a formal food, fertilized duck eggs have been described to be as "popular in Manila as hotdogs in the United States" (Maness 1950:10). Although at one point, balut may have been prevalent only in the Luzon region, and not in other areas of the Philippines, it has been hailed the country's "national street food" (Fernandez 1994:11). Balut is so deeply embedded in Philippine culture that it has inspired everything from a hit record song about the distinctive howling calls of balut vendors in the late night and early morning to dishes in Filipino haute cuisine. Indeed, the love affair of Filipinos with fertilized duck eggs has been carried by immigrants to the United States.

Estimating the number of balut businesses in the U.S. today is difficult. But wherever there are Filipinos, one can usually find balut. In California and Hawaii, businesses cater specifically to balut eaters. It is also easy to make balut in homes, where it is then sold to friends and co-workers. From Alaska to Rome, wherever Filipinos migrate for work, balut may be found.

Hey, Even though my name is Doug, it is not me in this article ( but I did try one in Cavite City in 1965/1966/1967 ) Hell, I forget. Know what I mean??

enough........

reeb....

There are all sorts of places like that.. Even here is in the the USA.......

[revwardoc]

I remember the balut vendors from my stint in the PI. You could smell those things a mile away. The guy would push his cart down the street shouting, "Balut! Balut!" and people would come running. We'd be in our favorite "bar" in Angeles City and the "female employees" would rush out, buy some, and tried to sit with us and eat them but we'd tell them to eat them somewhere else and come back, preferably after they brushed their teeth or something.

I'll try eating damn near anything but it at least has to smell good (feel free to take that any way you want).

[reeb]

Just dare to eat one of those things on the " Liberty Launch " from shore to Manila, ( especially when you have a dozen or more Marines on board drunk as a skunk, ( or should I say a Balut?)

All HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH breaks loose.

enough..........\\

reeb.......