Uncomfy Foods

This post is in response to Sues Blog at the following address:

The Torm Pages Blog Ewww

In the Philippines there are supernatural creatures infamous in the country’s folklore that can put a crippling chill in the spine of grown men by the mere mention of their name. On nights when the moon is high and the weather balmy and the air thick and wet, and when the residents of small villages leave their windows and doors wide open to escape the oppressive heat that smothers the Malay Archipelago, this is when the feared Aswang are said to appear. The Aswang live among the general human population and are not easily identified. They can take the form of women by day and werewolves by night. These are the merciless and murderous shapeshifters that hunt small children and the frail elderly. They may also take the form of a bloodsucking female vampire who seduce and kill. Or they can resemble something Westerners would describe as zombies or the undead on an eternal search for human flesh with a special fondness for liver. An Aswang is also able to cast spells in order to subdue the victim then use her wickedly long, serpentine tongue to penetrate the skin and to feed off of the blood. As with many of the Aswang’s Western counterparts, they were once human but became possessed by evil spirits and turned into creatures of the night. There are several ways to turn into an Aswang and it is rumored that one certain method is to eat balut.

There is a delicacy infamous in Filipino culture that can put a crippling chill in the spine of grown men almost as quickly as talk of Aswang. That delicacy is the notorious balut. Balut is a popular Filipino street snack and is essentially a duck egg with a fetus inside, typically between seventeen to twenty days in gestation. In the Philippines balut is so popular that it is equivalent to what the hot dog is in the U.S. There are balut vendors who push around carts full of fetal treats and bark their wares in a sing-song chant of “baluuuut, baluuuut!” Balut is also a popular aphrodisiac for men. But even with the good vibes and positive spin surrounding balut, the stigma attached to eating it overshadows all the warm and fuzzy aspects of this very disgusting dish.

Balut is the culinary heart of darkness. If you eat it, you have reservations about doing so. If you know about it, you have strong opinions regarding it. Ask for it in a restaurant and the clerk will visibly react. Devour it at a table with others who aren’t eating it and you’re guaranteed to dine solo. Explain balut to the uninitiated and be prepared for your audience to run away from you as quickly as possible while seeking sanctuary in something soft and comforting like a Ding Dong or Ho Ho. I know all this because I’ve had these things happen to me whenever balut is present, physically or conversationally. I have struggled and continue to struggle with eating balut. Superman has his kryptonite and I have balut. It is probably one of the (if not THE) exotic foods I fear most. Why am I so freaked out by balut? Well, how much time do you have? For starters, balut will haunt you after you ingest it. It stays with you forever. I’m not suggesting that I believe in the ghost stories about being possessed after eating balut. I’m speaking more to the traumatic imprinting that might occur when you consume this culturally complex cuisine. Even when I try hard not to think about what I’m eating, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I’m aware that I’m eating a fetus, life that is yet to be, something unborn, taboo food. Also, this awareness has nothing to do with political-religious beliefs. It is simply the unappealing idea of eating a fetus.

I did not grow up eating balut. My first exposure to balut was my first tour of duty in South East Asia when a Filipina aquaintance let me sample one of these eccentric eggs. She invited me to her home in Bagio where she was to prepare it. Back in those days I was slightly more daring about trying new and strange foods than compared to today. Also, I prided myself on being the “been there, ate that” guy. No exotic food could shock me. I’ve seen it all…or so I thought. My friend returned from the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear rather nefariously. She explained to me in plain language that balut is a boiled duck’s egg with a fetus inside. She continued on to illustrate that when I chew on the egg I may come across feathers, a beak, bones and other bonus treats that aren’t included in your standard hard-boiled egg. Intellectually I understood what she was telling me. Realistically I could not have been more unprepared. There on the table was the first balut I’d ever seen and it had my name on it. But before I was to breach the balut’s shell, my friend instructed me on the basics of eating balut. First, I had to tap the pointy tip of the egg’s shell and make an opening large enough only for the broth to trickle into my mouth. Next, I needed to remove the shell and season the egg with salt. Lastly, I had to decide whether to wolf down the balut in just two bites or less, so as not to visually encounter the fetus, or to nibble on the egg and eat it section by section, being extra cozy with the partially formed duck. Lesson over.

So I went ahead and tapped the tip of the egg, created a tiny hole and took a quick swig of the soup. It was nice. Light and subtly sweet. The next thing that happened is a lot like what happens when you crank the handle of a jack in the box. You know something is going to pop out and you know it is going to startle you, but just because something is predictable doesn’t make it less shocking. It came time to open the balut. I peeled off a sizeable swath of shell. Suddenly and without any warning the fetus was exposed. In my hand, clear as crystal, was part of a duck fetus imbedded in the whites with a random feather jutting out. The blood drained from my face, my knees buckled and my breath quickened. I dropped the balut and told my friend there was no way I could eat any part of that gruesome egg. My friend’s eyes widened and brightened. I think I even spied a string of saliva dangling from an incisor. She grabbed the balut and said, “That just means more for me.” She then ferociously devoured it as if it was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten in her entire life. She seemed a little intense when she ate the balut and it was worrisome to me, however there was no Hannibal Lecter styled flourish at the end, just a dainty belch.That happened over thirty years ago.

I’m older now. Less idealistic. More cynical. Maybe more callous. I don’t know. All I know is I have a score to settle. Balut beat me once and I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I could do this. Who cares if it’s a little baby duck that will never see a glistening pond or swim with a paddling of other baby ducks. I mean, really, what’s there to be afraid of? It’s not alive like Korean “live tentacles”. It’s not potentially poisonous like Japanese fugu. And I don’t really believe in those silly ghost stories about being possessed by female vampires after eating balut. The worst thing about it is that it looks kinda gross (ok, extremely gross). But so does a chunk of blue cheese to some people. The fear is all in my mind. I say; bring. It. On.

This was easier said than done, however. Balut is readily available in Filipino grocery stores but much harder to get at Filipino restaurants, and I wanted to eat it at a restaurant. Pinoy-Pinay in Panorama City, north of North Hollywood, California is one of the few restaurants that occasionally serves balut depending on whether or not the balut guy delivers a basket that day. When I showed up, it was there. I suppose it was destiny. The servers behind the counter at this turo-turo or “point-point restaurant” were suspicious of me as I went through the buffet line and only asked for the balut and nothing else. As soon as the balut hit my tray, I grabbed a far corner booth, tried to blend in and started to unwrap the foil that encased the balut. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then chipped a chunk of the shell’s top off and took a drink of the broth just like the first time. Although, this time around I couldn’t help but ponder the idea of whether this liquid was really a broth or closer to amniotic fluid. A provocative yet unappetizing thought, perhaps. Regardless, the broth slash amniotic fluid was faintly nectarous and pleasant. After sipping the very life force out of the balut and delaying as long as possible the inevitable ingesting of the fetus, I began removing the shell patch by patch until the balut was completely exposed. In front of me in its entire ghastly splendor was something that resembled a Star Trek teleportation gone horribly wrong. As Scotty will eagerly tell you with his guttural accent there is a small chance that when a person is teleported something could go awry and when the person is finally reassembled on the other side he could end up with his insides on the outside. Vile, I know, but this is what my balut reminded me of. The albumen or whites was covered by a sprawl of blood vessels, deeply etched all over the egg like red tribal markings. In another spot was a knot of unidentifiable nerves that looked vital. Over here was something resembling fibrous tissue of some sort. The whole shebang was coated in a slimy membrane that shimmered in the light. This was worse than I remembered and definitely a very bad beginning. I decided that I would do this in a big way and really face-off with my food. Which meant I would eat the balut bit by bit and expose the fetus and then eat the fetus without any barrier between it and me. My palms began to sweat as I deliberately took the egg apart piece by piece. Every time a chunk of egg was removed it was like the whole jack in the box syndrome again. I wanted to stop but I was morbidly curious and could not. The next chunk of albumen came off. And the next. Then the next…

Like a jolt there it was. The fetus: head, eyes, beak, little wings. No feathers this time, thank God. The sight of it threw me back into my seat. No matter how much I thought I was prepared for the balut, I still couldn’t handle looking at it. It turned my stomach. My throat constricted. My body was doing everything it could to dissuade me from putting that thing into my mouth. This fetus was a mad scientist’s experiment. It was an H.R. Giger creation. It was a bad acid trip. This fetus was many things but the one thing it certainly wasn’t was something I wanted to eat. But I had no choice really. Here I am. There it is. Here goes nothing. I took another deep breath, shut my eyes and did it quickly. (Sound advice for lots of things in life you don’t want to do.) I went right for the head and upper torso just like Ozzy Osborne used to do. Then I braced myself and waited for what I thought would be the unavoidable and unnerving crunch of tiny bones and the stab of a sharp beak. Miraculously and inexplicably, there was none of that, only the gentle sinking of teeth into egg. I dodged the balut bullet. Suddenly despite the daunting monstrous excuse of a meal presentation, it was inside of my mouth. Inside of me. Now if I could actually focus on the taste and not the terror. And, you know, it kind of tastes good. Sort of. It tastes, appropriately enough, something like duck. It also tastes like duck liver, and a few things I prefer not to dwell on. I was very relieved that it was over. But I was also disappointed. How could a food inspire so much fear, controversy and ghost stories and ultimately taste common, banal, even boring? How was this possible? And how very anticlimactic.

Regardless of this relatively benign experience, I am still skittish of balut. I simply can’t look at it. The sight of the fetus disgusts me like nothing else. I snicker at people who can’t eat fish with the head still attached or a whole roast pig or a Chinese roast duck. Balut really is not all that different from those dishes. But at the same time it is worlds different. Maybe what bothers me is the baby thing. I’m uncertain because I do enjoy baby octopus. Maybe it’s the vulnerable nature of the fetus. This could be part of the reason. Or maybe it’s the sickening sight of a partially formed creature? To much like a bad horror movie production than comfort food for me. I prefer my food fully constructed and a little older. Would I ever try balut again? Well, there is another traditional approach to eating balut that I forgot to mention. It involves drinking a shot of liquor after every bite of egg. So if there’s a bottle of Jack next to that sack of balut, you can count me in as a definite maybe. Or maybe not.

I've got answers?

I responded to a friends request for volunteers to play along with her in a game she called
Becky Has Questions, I Have Answers... So I guess I will call this Sue Has Questions, I Can Beat Around The Bush With Something Resembling Answers With What May Just Be Idle Ramblings Of A Seriously Long Winded Warped Mind. (is the title long enough?)

The premise:

1. If you had the option to go back in time and re-do one event in your life, would you take the chance on a different outcome?
2. Being a chef, what is the one thing you enjoy cooking the most – and the least?
3. What is your favorite meal to EAT?
4. If you were given the choice of being a famous writer or a famous singer/musician, which would you choose? (Since I happen to know you are extremely talented in both areas!)
5. An easy one: What is your favorite color?

The answers

1. I don’t know if just one event would have made much of a difference in my life, I do believe that if there were one event that might have changed the coarse of my path it would have been to stay in the Navy when I was younger. I had worked my butt off as a pollywog finally gaining my sea legs and was just coming into my own when I left the service for the “girl next door”. We were engaged and planned on being married as soon as I was discharged, as Debbie being an army brat wasn’t fond of the military. Debbie met a jarhead and was introduced to the world of drugs and parties while I was undergoing separation duty. By the time I returned, she had moved in with her new friend and was intoxicated daily bye 7a.m. I don’t try to second guess if I could have done anything to help her avoid some of the mistakes I made earlier in my life, she made a choice and ultimately lived with it. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wasn’t all that heartbroken as I should have been over the ordeal. If I had remained in the service, I would have traveled more, the military was about to pay real wages and I was moving up the ranks after several years of “growing” up. I loved being at sea and always had wanderlust. I was good at what I did and took pride in my performance and was a good mentor onboard ship. I think it would have been a good life and I really enjoyed the fantail band Cinnamon Reign that I played with and miss that life at times.
   
2. It is a toss up between Saucier, Garde Manger, or Boulanger/Patissier. I worked at Sam’s Seafood as a Saucier making all the soups and sauces for the evening meal, then worked the fast paced shift as expediter or relief bartender as the need arose. The restaurant was owned by the “Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island; Alan Hale Jr. and was a lot of fun to work for. The atmosphere was laid back yet romantic with Polynesian music and a Koy pond complete with an eight-foot rock waterfall gurgling in the background decorated with elctric fireflies like at Disneyland’s bayou area at the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. After hours the employees and often Mr. Hale would set up a table in the lounge and play poker or Mil Borne until dawn. I was performing with a group called TNT in the Orange County area at the time as well and with Mr. Hales generous help we were able to get gigs at places like Jaspers, Moonrakers, Reuben E. Lee’s, The Rusty Pelican and more. Garde Manger was the position I shined in at the Aircoa Sheraton Hotel in Newport Beach. I was an apprentice there and working full time, carrying a full load at Orange Coast College, working a few graveyard shifts at U-Totem Mini Mart in Costa Mesa and teaching the (don’t laugh) New York Hustle and West Coast Swing at the Arthur Murray School of Dance in Newport Beach just down the street form the Sheraton. I also tried singing waiter at a restaurant across the street, but I just couldn’t fit in with the staff. And my stint in the Navy gave me my bakery roots, a job I didn’t much care for in the service but volunteered for because it got me first liberty whenever we pulled into shore. So I learned well and spent my landlubber days in exotic lands as a tourist instead of pulling inane guard duties while docked. It is a skill that served me well over the years, and when I opened my first restaurant I included a bakery as well as a catering service, which greatly expanded my income potential. Then later when I faced hard times and was in need of work, I accepted a job as poolside Hotdog vender at the newly built Ramada Express during their grand opening. As it happened, a drunk driver struck the Pastry Chef while he was walking home from work one night and was hospitalized and eventually retired from work. Chef Albert Hall III asked if anyone had experience as a pastry Chef and much to everyone’s surprise I came forward and stepped into the position, a decision chef Al never regretted. Later after the County of San Bernardino finally picked me up as a deputy, it was a close call between long challenging hours of Casino kitchen work and the better paying adventurous position of sheriff’s deputy and I chose the call of the badge. Who knew that in a few years I would be the head of Bakery operations and the R.O.P. training coarse and get the opportunity to design my own multi million-dollar bakery for the county? So it is very difficult to nail down what my favorite food prep is, but I do know I don’t care for working with anything with fresh tripe in it, I had a really bad shipboard experience involving a hangover and cleaning tripe in the hot humid south East Asian tropics one time.
   
3. LOBSTER!!!! Hands down my personal favorite, preferably Brazilian or Zealand Rock lobster, spiny lobster is ok and so is Australian, Main or New England lobsters. Don’t bother offering me Langoustinos or fresh water lobsters (crayfish) I will hold out for the real thing. I love mostly broiled lobster tail, or BBQ’d lobster kabobs, lobster thermadore, lobster Newburg, lobster bisque, crisp lobster salad with mango and lime dressing, I love the rich sweet flavor with a hint of smoky slightly charred delight of a brazier or barbeque grill permeating the tender pieces of lobster. Ok, now I’m hungry.
   
4. Hands down I would choose famous writer. As much as I love to sing and perform, I am not a crowd person, and if I were a famous in-your-face musician on CD labels and concert tours, I would loose much of my privacy. If I were a famous writer I could remain a recluse and not show my head to the public any more than necessary to promote my books. Then I would take time out to form a little local garage band as a hobby. I do love being a big fish in a small pond.
   
5. Easy she says… I once liked the color green as a child, but my fondness for blue emerged in my teens. As a young adult Black became the understatement that defined my inner angst and by mid twenties avocado and persimmon pleased my palate. Disco broke the barriers and introduced me to bright psychedelic flamboyant color and chrome combos (I never adapted to pastel leisure suits) and wild paisley prints, I wanted many colors that would make me dizzy by bursting out in conflict of one another. This was followed by a brief brush with the combined red and black colors of some mystic significance I cannot recall at this time (probably involving a troubled woman). Then as my business like side settled down to take the helm of my journey; I preferred the influence of earth tone browns. Later as my independence gave me more personal definition I found comfort in power combinations of banker gray suits and bold red ties. Now days I am more fond of Silver, Pewter and Black and White.
   
   

Anniversaries mean many things to different people

Thirty-seven years ago I met the love of my life. I walked into a Sizzler Steak house on Tustin Avenue in a city in Orange County of the same name and approached the cashier with a sense of apprehension. It wasn’t because the young girl behind the cash register was strikingly attractive with only a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle and a v-neck honey-caramel butterfly blouse with little pastel flowers visible above the counter top, or the smile that took my breath away impeding my heart from beating for a very long personal moment. I was filled with anxiety because I was new in town, nearly penniless and desperately in need of work, any kind of work.

After she asked if she could help me and stared directly into my eyes, I knew straight away that this extraordinary person was and always would reamin special to me. I didn’t seem to know very much else at the time though, as I stuttered and mumbled my miserable request.

“May I have an application?” I managed to convey in an awkward technique typically engaged by mimes and interpretive dancers but in my application I merely appeared lame and Special Olympic bound, much to my magnificently sad credit.

“Sure thing, we happen to be in desperate need of a broiler cook right now, Grant’s son quit again. He’s the boss. Well Grant is, not his son. Greg, that's Grant's son. Same name as my older brother but you probably don't know any of them, do you? How soon can you start?”

“Uh, I was thinking of something like dishwasher or busboy. I don’t have a lot of experience on the grill.” I explained in a painfully embarrassed confession of my absolute lack of ability.

“Ever barbeque at home?” She asked.

“Well, sure, and I used to help Duke Sherod, the owner of the Trabuco Oaks Steak House on the grill when it got busy some nights. He was teaching me prep work and…”

“Sounds like your qualified to me. Here I’m going on break let me help you with the application. I know what Grant likes. Oh by the way my name is Janet, do you want a soda or something?”

It is oddly strange that I cannot remember my own phone number some days, but I can recall every detail of that meeting. The conversation that took place and even the clean but worn padded red vinyl booth we sat in to talk. I remember the washed out gilded frames around pastoral scenes of banal bovine bliss hanging on the wood paneled walls, and the bright sunlit parking lot coolly visible through the large tinted polarized plate glass windows surrounding the dining room. I can still see her sweet smile and large nutmeg brown eyes, and I can once again hear her infectious laugh and feel the self confidence that gave me the strength and belief in myself to follow her lead and pad my resume even as I write this.

From the very first day I met Janet I have measured all women to her caliber and found none that compare. We became fast friends and over several years we endured the rigors and challengs that comes with growth and responsibility. I protected her when she was vulnerable, and encouraged her when she was adventurous. It crushed me to learn upon my return from Viet Nam that Janet married my best friend, and hurt even more years later when they divorced. I never wished pain on either of them.

I lost track of Janet after she left my friend Michael with her two year old son Chad and did not see or hear from her for twenty years. Then one day I received an email from Chad. It seems he tracked down his Dad and then me through the Internet. After a few pleasant rounds of messages he asked if I remembered his Mom and said she spoke of me often and then said that she wanted to know if I would mind hearing from her. I was elated (understament). I could not believe after some correspondence that we lived so close to one another, since neither of us lived in Orange County any more. We shopped at the same grocery store, visited the same Walmart and Target stores. We went to the same soccer park, the same movie theatres and the lead singer (coincidentally named Randa Lee) of the Randa Lee Express band which I was playing in at the time had her hair done by Janet’s best friend from grammar school. We dined at the same restaurants and yet we never bumped into each other over the twenty years we co existed in each other’s backyard.

For me our reunion was magical, an answer to all my prayers. It was a second chance to do what I should have done twenty-five years earlier. I asked her to marry me, and Janet accepted. The wedding was beautiful as weddings go, full of hope and magic and promise of a perfect future. Unfortunately for me, Janet found our married life less than fulfilling. Romance and passion aside, once the novelty wore off I guess she found life with me competitive and tedious. She left me two years later (and by leaving I mean she tossed me out keeping all my stuff). To give her credit, she was the perfect housekeeper; she ultimately kicked me to the curb and kept the house, both of them. I would like to say that I have learned my lesson, but I am a fool of fools who still loves only one person. Some say I am broken but that I can be mended. But I know better. I am missing a part of my heart that cannot be repaired or replaced and must learn to live with my real enough handicap; the knowledge that I found true love and couldn’t hold on to it.