Balut : Fertilized Eggs and the Making of Culinary Capital in the Filipino Diaspora

In this book, Margaret Magat explores both the traditional and popular culture contexts of eating balut. Balut-fertilized duck or chicken eggs that have developed into fully formed embryos with feathers and beaks-is a delicacy which elicits passionate responses. Hailed as an aphrodisiac in Filipino culture, balut is often seen and used as an object of revulsion in Western popular culture. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, reality television programs, travel shows, food blogs, and balut-eating contests, Magat examines balut production and consumption, its role in drinking rituals, sex, and also the vampire-like legends behind it. Balut reveals how traditional foods are used in the performance of identity and ethnicity, inspiring a virtual online cottage industry via social media. It also looks at the impact globalization and migration are having on cultural practices and food consumption across the world. The first academic book on balut, this is essential reading for anyone in food studies, folklore studies, anthropology, and Asian American studies. "Grounded in folkloristics and anthropology, Margaret Magat explores both the traditional and popular culture contexts of balut. Balut - fertilized duck or chicken eggs that have developed into fully formed embryos with feathers and beaks - is a delicacy which elicits passionate responses. Hailed as an aphrodisiac in Filipino culture, balut is often seen and used as an object of revulsion and disgust in western popular culture. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, reality television programs, travel shows, food blogs, and balut-eating contests, Magat examines balut production and consumption, its role in drinking rituals, sex, and the supernatural, vampire-like legends behind it. Balut reveals how traditional foods are used in the performance of identity and ethnicity, inspiring a virtual online cottage industry via social media as well as the impact globalization and migration are having on cultural practices and food consumption across the world. The first academic book on balut, this is essential reading for anyone in food studies, folklore studies, anthropology, and Asian American studies"-- Provided by publisher "This is the story of the bean, the staple food cultivated by humans for over 10,000 years. From the lentil to the soybean, every civilization on the planet has cultivated its own species of bean. The humble bean has always attracted attention - from Pythagoras' notion that the bean hosted a human soul to St. Jerome's indictment against bean-eating in convents (because they "tickle the genitals"), to current research into the deadly toxins contained in the most commonly eaten beans. Over time, the bean has been both scorned as "poor man's meat" and praised as health-giving, even patriotic. Attitudes to this most basic of foodstuffs have always revealed a great deal about a society. Featuring a new preface from author Ken Albala, Beans: A History takes the reader on a fascinating journey across cuisines and cultures."--Bloomsbury Publishing