Balut eggs have become one of the popular street foods in Vietnam. Although this dish is rich in nutrients, it is also controversial because of its humanity.
Let’s find out the facts about this strange food!
First of all, it should be noted that there are many types of balut eggs of quails, chickens, and ducks, but duck eggs are the most common. So, in this article, we are talking about the balut eggs of ducks.
Another thing is that balut or balut egg means “trứng vịt lộn” or “hột vịt lộn” in Vietnamese.
1. Transforming the Vietnamese way of producing balut eggs
It is not known precisely when balut eggs were eaten in Vietnam. However, this food is undoubtedly associated with agricultural culture, including rice cultivation and livestock raising.
Ducks are water-loving animals. Because of the advantages of fields and thick rivers, many Vietnamese farmers have raised many ducks for meat and eggs.
For breeding, owners take eggs from ducks to incubate. However, egg warming relies on rough tools and experience, so batches of eggs are not 100%.
To prevent waste, eggs that cannot be hatched are treated by feeding livestock or boiling them to eat because such eggs contain a lot of nutrients.
Gradually, eating these eggs has become a favorite dish of diners. Since eggs damaged during the incubation of ducklings are not in enough supply, the mid-incubation technique of duck eggs was developed to meet everyone’s needs.
Then, duck eggs are incubated for 14-19 days (the best 16 – 17 days), when the duck fetus is formed. The eggs are then sold to boiled egg sellers and supplied to diners.
Balut eggs have become a business by taking advantage of food sources to prevent waste. Since then, this has caused many controversies: Is it humane to eat balut eggs?
2. Balut eggs are always served with laksa leaves.
The sellers always give you Vietnamese hot mint (laksa leaves) with balut eggs even though you don’t mention this vegetable. This is the default method for selling and eating fertilized and boiled duck eggs in Vietnam.
Why is it?
From a cultural perspective in cuisine, Vietnamese people often balance yin and yang for most ways of eating. Duck eggs have extreme yin properties, and Vietnamese hot mint leaves have high yang properties. The combination of spicy laksa leaves will neutralize the negative fishy taste of eggs for better digestion and taste.
Regarding nutrition, boiled duck eggs are rich in protein and minerals. Supplying too many nutrients to the body at once will cause a lot of physiological desire. It is necessary to limit the need by eating hot mint. The reason is that laksa leaves, considered one of the famous Vietnamese herbs, have substances that can reduce human physiological needs, especially for men.
In some places, balut is also sold with ginger, fish sauce, and sweet and sour papaya. Ginger helps to get good digestion when eating eggs with too much protein, and sweet and sour papaya provides fiber and adds vegetable vitamins, reducing the feeling of fatigue when eating.
It can be seen that the complete ingredients to eat fertilized duck eggs boiled include many ingredients, not only duck eggs but also ginger sauce, laksa leaves, sweet and sour papaya, salt, and pepper. The high nutritional value of balut eggs cannot be denied. Still, these extra ingredients contribute significantly to making the dish more interesting.
3. Although eating balut duck eggs in the morning is recommended, people still eat more in the evening.
Balut contains a lot of protein and cholesterol that is difficult to digest, so it is better to eat this food in the morning and at noon than in the evening. However, you will find that Vietnamese people like to eat “Hột Vịt Lôn” in the late afternoon, evening, and late at night. Paradoxically, but there are reasons.
The first reason is that most people can’t sit and eat slowly in the morning and carefully separate each eggshell. Besides, balut eggs have an unpleasant fishy smell when brought to the office, so not many people bring breakfast with this food to work.
Next, Vietnamese people like to have a light breakfast that doesn’t need much protein or vitamins. The main meal is lunch and dinner; more importantly, there is still dinner when protein-rich dishes are prepared and eaten. Therefore, the habit of choosing balut eggs at night is also formed from that thought and need.
Third, boiled duck eggs are a portion of easy-to-find, affordable street food. After boys and girls walk around the city, when they want something not too big like Vietnamese bread, just small to fill the stomach, then balut will be a perfect choice. It does not fill the stomach fully, but it has enough energy for youth activities.
For the above reasons, boiled egg sellers also often prepare this food or bring it to sell after 3 p.m. If it is earlier, you won’t find any place that sells balut to eat right away in Vietnam.
>> You may see the 10 famous facts in Vietnam.
4. Usually, the place selling balut comes with an oil lamp.
Every night, when night falls, you will see kerosene lamps at many crossroads. That is a sign of a place that sells balut eggs.
Before electricity, oil lamps were a light source many people used to dispel the darkness. A place selling something at night, like balut eggs, had kerosene lamps to attract consumers.
At the same time, the oil lamp is a tool for the seller to examine the eggs to see if the eggs are old or young. It means knowing whether the duck eggs have large or small ducklings. Depending on the taste of the eater, the seller chooses suitable eggs.
Although electricity is nowadays almost everywhere, and it can also help to check eggs, using oil lamps has become a habit of the balut sellers. Every time you see a kerosene lamp, you know exactly where to go.
5. There are two twin sisters with fertilized duck eggs boiled.
The place selling balut duck eggs also offers other variations, such as halfway-brooding and rotten eggs.
If balut eggs have been incubated for a certain number of days (often 16 – 19 days) and selected to be sold to a user, then halfway brooding eggs are a type of eggs that cannot form fetuses and are usually incubated for half the number of days of incubation before the owner releases it.
At that time, the whites and yolks of the brooding eggs had broken apart and blended together. You can see a few red threads of the veins, but the eggs don’t smell bad yet.
The next one is the rotten egg, which is an unfertilized duck egg. It cannot form a fetus and is incubated for nearly the total number of days of balut. Then, the owner finds out. At that time, this type of egg already had a rotten smell due to the egg white and yolk decomposition.
However, these eggs are still not discarded; they are still marked for sale to consumers in need. Many people believe that eating a halfway brooding or rotten egg will reduce the possibility of dizziness caused by suddenly sitting and standing up (?). Certainly, rotten eggs and halfway-hatched eggs are much cheaper than fresh balut eggs.
6. You can choose the type of balut eggs with tiny fetuses inside.
Many people who try to eat duck eggs for the first time should choose eggs with young duck fetuses because you will be surprised and scared when you see the whole duck with full feathers, eyes, and beaks.
So, when buying balut duck eggs, tell the seller to choose according to your needs and preferences. Sellers are very good at distinguishing between large and small duck fetus eggs, good or bad eggs.
The skill of looking at balut on oil lamps to identify old or young fetuses is one of the widely applied techniques. That’s why, as mentioned above, the seller of balut eggs often comes with an oil lamp.
Experienced balut sellers get very few errors when choosing young or old fetus eggs according to customer requirements. Moreover, even in the incubator house, eggs have been classified by age for easy selling due to more developed incubation techniques.
So, tell the boiled egg seller what you need so they can provide you with the right egg and free-risk appetite when you try this unique dish for the first time.
7. Eggs with lots of water are delicious eggs
Every time you break a balut duck egg to eat, water comes out, more or less, depending on each egg. However, according to experience, balut eggs containing much water are more delicious.
More water indicates that the egg is fresh, just boiled. If the egg is left for a long time or boiled repeatedly, it will dry out, and the taste will not be attractive. Do not choose fertilized duck eggs boiled over and over again.
If the egg does not have water inside, it will often crack, affecting its nutritional value. Eating the egg will feel dry and fleshy, not as interesting as a fresh egg with a lot of water.
Therefore, when selecting boiled duck eggs, you should remove cracked eggs that show signs of being boiled repeatedly (usually feeling light). Buying from reputable places is an excellent choice for tasty balut.
8. Balut duck eggs with feathers inside
The inside of a balut duck egg sometimes has feathers if the egg has an old fetus. This will create a feeling of dread for many people when eating for the first time.
Many first-time eaters will pick up the feathers. However, doing this to some Vietnamese is useless because these young feathers do not harm them and do not reduce their appetite.
The older the egg, the more proteins and other micronutrients it contains. Many people are used to eating balut, and they like to enjoy the older eggs.
Thus, when you are on the first try, please always tell the seller you don’t like eating eggs with feathers. They will help you choose the right size of balut eggs.
Did you know Vietnamese people have an interesting old saying: Eat that is good for that -:)? Maybe your body also needs to add more or less of these feathers !!!??? Hahaha…
