No accounting for taste

Posted on 2007.09.10

Actually, I don’t want to know anything about the way this tastes.

The things some people willingly eat… Beth found a food that repulses me way more than the idea of fried bull testicles: Balut, or, partially developed baby ducks, eaten whole, straight from the egg.

Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?!?!

Balut, baby ducks eaten while still in the egg, is a dish from the Philippines. The vendor has to keep the eggs warm so the embryo stays alive, and has to know exactly how old they are: Do you want 12-day, 16-day, or 18-day eggs?

This is a great example of something that only works as local food. Why don’t we eat it? (Maybe because it sounds really gross?) If you’re adventurous, learn how to cook and eat balut.

Adventurous, indeed. This reminds me of Jabba the Hutt’s eating habits, only less alive (barely).

I don’t know what it is about eating entire animals that disgusts me so profoundly. I think it’s the bones, brains, and entrails (I would make a terrible zombie).

Luckily, since I’m no longer eating poultry, I don’t have to deal with all those hypocritical feelings of disgust that some of you carnivores may be feeling right about now (because, y’know, meat comes from animals; most of which used to have entrails).

9 Responses to No accounting for taste

1. Daniel says:

   Gross. Unless it was prepared without the head (too much cartilage), cut to small pieces and fried until crispy. Then, it’s only a matter of how does the sad fellow taste ;)
2. AJ says:

   OMG! WTF! I think this is the turning point for me…now if I can just stop eating seafood….
3. boggerbutt21 says:

   meanies so not whats up jerks dont eat em why would anyone eat those poor things i love ducks and if i see any one do that i will taken qaction lol i will tell my friends about this dish they wll tell others so you wont have such a popular dish boohoohoo
4. KelseyThomas says:

   This is soooo awful. They’re still alive?!?! Which means they feel can feel themselves being eaten and it is probably extremely painful. Just looking at this makes me want to vomit. People sicken me.
5. Teri says:

   They are cooked, slightly, so I doubt they are alive during the eating. But they ARE alive during the cooking.

   People DO eat live food, of course. Live octopus/squid is a delicacy:
   
6. crow says:

   Where do organisms come from? Other organisms. They either eat up their own life source in order to make more of themselves (you could call this self-consumption), and/or they usurp the energy from other organisms. Skins, muscles, and brains are various structures of amino acids. Amino acids are broken down and rebuilt by enzymes in order to become anything the body requires.

   Thus one allegedly observed overarching pattern with all life as we know it is that organisms beget other organisms. When applying such meta-biology (or meta-analysis in biology) to the culinary arts, it is far more likely that the idea that organisms do not feed off organisms could appear far more perverse than any previous material in this blog post.
7. Teri says:

   No one suggested that organisms shouldn’t feed off each other. Plants are organisms too, even vegans feed on other organisms to survive.

   Just because organisms need to be consumed doesn’t mean you should torture them before doing it- sure, you need to eat eggs, but do you really need to cook the chicks alive to do it? No.
8. crow says:

   That is a very intriguing and long-standing question, with an endless variety of thoughtful answers, like your own, having arisen from it. Intriguingly, there does not seem to be a definitive answer, for the answer to the question depends entirely on world view. Why is life so different for the lion who slowly eats its prey alive, versus the human at Olive Garden? Should it be so different? Why or why not? These are all open-ended questions and I, being agnostic, would not dream of coercing anyone in any particular direction. I believe, Teri, that you have a valid point. I also feel that a lot of people agree with your point, to the extent of taking it for granted. Things to consider to cease taking such things for granted: perhaps the person or animal consuming the not-yet-dead organism does not view such cooking and/or acquisitional techniques as “torture”. Perhaps “torture” is heavily culturally constructed. Perhaps the lions and the Filipinos in question know something that we don’t…like perhaps the medical value in preparing and/or eating something that is still alive…an eating method that we may actually have originally been evolved for. As I said before, you’ve an excellent point, and is one of many intriguing possibilities.
   Thanks,
   e.g.
9. well.. says:

   hey. i eat octopus and squid.
   they actually taste really good =)