101 Challenges:

Today we headed into one of the many markets in Manila - in search of a local dish. This was part of the ongoing Dodgy Delicacy challenge and, this one certainly lived up to the title.  The particular dish we were looking for is called Balute. It looks like a normal chicken egg, except inside there’s a partially developed foetus. Yum yum. Everyone likes chicken.

We found a little stall selling the Balute in no time at all and loads of people were coming to purchase the protein filled dish. Apparently you should have no more than 10 per week or you’ll die. We don’t know what of or if it’s true but that’s what we were told and we’ll believe anything – the moon is made of cheese!

Lindsay ate chicken feet in Vietnam so it was only right that Lee eat chicken feet-uss (see what we did there!) in the Philippines.

Lee approached the stall owner and made sure what he was about to buy was in fact Balute. He was very articulate and pointed to the pile of eggs and said chicken? The stall holder nodded and said chicken in which point Lee nodded back and said chicken one more time just to be sure there was no misunderstanding. Thrice confirmed – it was indeed chicken.

Not knowing what to expect, Lee proceeded to crack the egg and peel off the top of the shell. What was revealed looked like something from the movie “Alien” than a chicken or a normal yolk. There was loads of liquid in the egg (the “soup” apparently) and Lee was encouraged to down it by the now growing crowd - who were enjoying watching the little Westerner tucking in to one of their favourite snacks.

The liquid was downed, and despite a burp or two and stomach convulsions it surprised Lee to find that it didn’t taste too bad. Not good, just not too bad. The rest of the shell was then removed and the contents were unfolded. There was a hard stone like thing which you don’t or cannot eat, then a little bit of what look liked normal egg yolk and then the alien.

The alien part was gooey, slimy, ugly, and down right scary looking. This was certainly something that you did not want to hold, never mind put in your mouth. Nevertheless, with some members of the crowd instructing that it tastes better with salt, Lee sprinkled away and then shoved the gooey and slimey salty gunk in to his gaping mouth to a chanting crowd countdown of 3-2-1.

As it was chewed the vomit-inducing-stomach-spasms returned. Throughout the period of chewing and swallowing, a little dance was performed. This was just an involuntary reaction by the body and we don’t know if it was a “Lee” thing or whether Balute causes everybody to dance.

The crowd were pleased with the Westerner’s performance and happy that he had tried one of their delicacies and managed to keep the contents down. With the deed done we left the market with talk of future dodgy delicacies to come… things such as live prawns in Japan. Perhaps, in comparison, dead and uncooked baby chicken isn’t that bad after all