Balut

Hassan and I got into a very funny discussion today, but unfortunately it didn't go very far. His participation in conversations about our childhood in the 80's are disappointingly limited. Nonetheless, we got on a VERY random conversation about Chicken McNuggets and how when I was a kid, I would always save my favorite piece last: "the boot". Hassan disagrees at the odd fact that McDonalds' Chicken McNuggets come in "standardized" shapes. HA! In fact, I can recall 2 distinct shapes: the "oval" and the "boot". AND thanks to Wikipedia, there is also the "tombstone".


Which leads me to the title of this blog entry. Mikey, my younger brother, always saved the "oval" last because as a little kid, it fit perfectly into his palm. As a kid, Mikey loved little, random objects: Tic-Tac containers, quarters, Legos, and finally balut. Balut is a Filipino delicacy and hot food item for gastronomists like Andrew Zimmern on Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods". Basically, it's an aborted duck egg that was thown into a vat of hot, salted water. Imagine chicken soup with the meat (ala feathers and partially developed eye and beak) all in nature's original little container. And that's all that little Mikey had to hear...

When we were in the Philippines in the 1985, Mikey begged my parents to purchase balut for him from a street vendor in the early morning (they eat this for breakfast). Mikey, who has always had a kind heart and naive intentions, did not want to eat this cute little duck egg, but to adopt it, hatch it, and love the little animal that was supposedly inside. Little did Mikey know that this egg would not hatch. Nonetheless, he built it a temporary nest (we were in a hotel at the time) for it to hatch. He took the hotel's ashtray and gathered up some toilet paper, folded it up, and placed it neatly into the ashtray. Then he placed this "nest" underneath a lamp so that it would keep the egg warm (despite it being 99 degree weather outside). After laying the egg in it's new home, Mikey sat eagerly and waited and waited and waited...now this is where my own memory becomes fuzzy because I can't recall how long he waited and how he came to realize that this egg would not hatch. Maybe it's a good thing I can't remember so that I don't have to remember his disappointment, but it's a cute story I keep with me always.