Not Just An Ordinary Egg

Going back to my Cambodian roots again, one popular dish is the balut egg, which is different from a regular egg in that the embryo is more developed.  Cracking a balut egg open, one can see a baby duck's head, feathers, eyes beak, and claws.  I grew up eating this dish with lemon juice mixed with salt and pepper, and mint leaves.  I never really thought about how gross this food may appear because when you're just a kid, you eat what ever your parents eat.  So to me, eating balut is normal because I grew up with others eating the exact same thing.  However, now that I am older, I pay more attention to what I eat.  Especially now that I work in a chick lab doing research with chick embryos, I feel a little more insecure about eating balut.  I guess when you get older, you become more aware of what you put in your body, and that's why I no longer eat balut because I feel you should just eat full grown duck, or just a plain egg, but not a baby duck in an egg.