The notorious boiled fertilized duck's egg is what the town of Pateros and neighboring towns of Rizal in Metro Manila is famous for. It takes 28 days to hatch a Duck's egg and producing this one of a kind egg, a perfect balut is boiled at 17 days, when the chick is still wrapped in white and showing no beak or feathers.
There is an art to eating balut. First, make sure it's hot. Hold up the egg and determine the wider end and lightly tapping it here to break off a piece of eggshell and then taking a sip to savor the balut's tasty broth - you may want to salt it before doing so. Once all the soup has been sipped, crack the rest of the egg, peel it open and sprinkle it with rock salt. The yolk is firm yet tender and the chick should go down smooth and sweet.
Said to be an aphrodisiac, balut is traditionally sold by vendors who do their rounds on the streets peddling the eggs in baskets in the evening, bellowing, "Baluuuuuuuut!" The menfolk like to gather at street corner sari-sari stores with their bottles of beer or gin and balut as pulutan (bar chow), spending many a happy happy hour.
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