Weird Food-
Bohol, the Philippines Christmas 2006
Pictures
1. An open Durian. You can see the cavity from where you scoop the flesh of the fruit
2-3. Rob prepares to eat Bolat. I am right behind him with my own.
4. A durian propped up in the market in all of its glory
I did not get to eat very much strange food during this trip even though I looked high and low for it. I had heard about several culinary delights that the islands are famous for like one day old chickens, eaten as a snack while drinking, and a large sausage made of cow penis but I just did not find anything like that so I had to contend myself with duck embryo and durian.
I found the duck embryo right outside of the Loboc church as I was leaving midnight mass on Christmas Eve. A man was walking around the church with as big hot bag on his shoulder. I was with my new friend Rob, an Israeli who had just been to his first Christmas Mass, go figure, and we had to find out what goodies the man had in the box. We figured it had to be good judging by the crowd of locals that he was surrounded by on his trip around town.
We finally were able to force our way through the crowd and got a good look at what was in the box slung over his shoulder. To us, the uninitiated it looked like any normal egg, maybe a little bigger than average. As we held the eggs in our hands they were just like big chicken eggs, the only difference being the size and the fact that they were slightly warm, although far from hot, in our hands.
The crowd of locals around us began to stand back in a respectful half circle as they realized that the two foreigners were about to take part in a real Phillippino delicacy. Before popping our treats in our mouths though, we had to find out what the hell we were doing and how then to eat it.
Looking quizzically at the crowd I asked what I was holding in my hand, “Balot”, the crowd replied, then realizing that there was no way I understood what that meant, “duck embryo”, was shouted at me and then the seller of these wonderful gems looked up and said, “These are seventeen day old duck eggs, the feathers are just starting to form but the beak was not hardened.”
Oh
To eat seventeen-day-old duck embryos one first cracks the shell and peels away the top third of the shell, leaving the bottom 2/3ds of the shell attached. At seventeen days you get to see that you are actually eating a bird. You can see its little wings all folded up and the top of its head. There are feathers on the wings that you will soon be plopping, whole, into your mouth.
After you have peeled off the top part of the shell you sprinkle on a dash of sea salt and a sprinkling of vinegar. Then, and only then, do you tilt your head back, lift up the egg, and squeeze the bottom of the shell, causing the fetus to fall, with a plop, into your mouth. A quick chew, a spit to get rid of a hard, rocklike substance, and that’s it. To be honest, it just tastes like an egg, a very big, chewy, egg.
The only other weird food that I had the whole trip was a durian. The durian is a fruit often seen in south East Asia but almost never outside it. The people of the tropics love it but it gets a bad rap because of its one defining feature. It smells.
I mean it really smells, like the worst thing you have ever smelled. It smells like a dead body would smell after being in a closed, hot room, for a day. It reeks.
The durian that I found in the Tagbiliaran market did not smell nearly as bad as I have heard, okay, not even like I described above, but it did smell bad.
The durian is a very big fruit, about the size of a basketball. Green in colour it is covered by hard spikes that make it tough to hold. To eat the fruit you need to peel back the hard green outer shell, being careful not to impale yourself on the spikes and get at the almost custard like middle of the fruit.
After getting to the middle you reach the meat of the fruit. Soft and flabby, like pudding, it is a pale yellow in colour. There are four globs of this stuff in the fruit, on in each quarter and this is what you eat, scooping it out like soft cheese spread. Initially it tastes like onions or garlic but the aftertaste is just like a very nice fruit taste, it’s just the smell that gets you.
