June 7, 2025 • 32 mins
No trip to the Philippines would be complete without eating the controversial Filipino delicacy, Balut. This popular street food has been trending on social media for some time, due to its shocking appearance and questionable ethics, so we decided to give it a try. Is it good? Is it wrong? Join the debate!
We also discuss the Philippines' other defining features: incredibly slow elevators and the infamous mode of public transport, the Jeepney.
Sign up to Patreon for this week's Lost & Found section, as we continue the food theme. We put Manila's local desserts to the test in what is quite possibly the most underwhelming food experience we've had in Southeast Asia.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to the fastest growing travel podcast in the
world. That's facts.
Hello, Welcome to this episode of Topology.
(00:20):
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever elevated Adam.
I'm on the verge of getting a Nosebleed.
We're ever so high, Alan. Why is that cause?
Because we're, because we're at 38 floors, is it 38 or 37?
We're on 38, the building has 44, and then there's some
penthouses up top. I met a man in the elevator.
(00:42):
He was going to the penthouse and he was ever so flamboyantly
dressed. That's what I knew.
He was going to the penthouse before I even see him.
Rich Botany pushed. What was he wearing?
Go and tell me. Talk me throughout the outfit.
Call a gold chain some diamonds in his teeth.
Yeah. I mean, we are, of course, still
in Manila, still in the Philippines, ruining the
decision to extend now at what we've dubbed Tripology HQ.
(01:04):
Yeah, the building is so tall and the lifts are so slow that
over the last few days when we've been gallivanting around
the building, around the foyer, just sort of moseying around the
the area outside the hotel, I dofeel like I've spent a
ridiculous amount of time in theelevator.
And I know that we spoke about it on the last show, but a few
(01:26):
things have happened to me over the last two days.
I honestly feel like being in those elevators, I've spent more
time with them than I have with you.
More time with the elevators. No, no.
With the people inside the elevators, you end up spending
so much time with the people you're in the lift with the
towards the end of it, you know,sort of their life story if you
end up talking. Have you got a new item you'd
(01:47):
like to announce? Stories from the elevator.
Yeah, we're doing a spin off in the Patreon section.
No, I mean, it's it's been so awkward a few times because you
know, when you go into a lift, Idon't know how many travel
podcasts are talking about the dynamic inside an elevator.
A few, but we're about to. There's been a few occasions
when there's been so few people in there but no one talks.
(02:09):
Yeah, well, that's normal thoughin an elevator, isn't it?
You have. I'd be weirder if you got into
an elevator and everyone was like, hey, a newbie.
I mean, I don't know what the psychology is behind it.
I'm sure there's a Scandinavian word that sort of explains it
really well. But I feel like when there's
many people in there and some people, there's some, some
people, sometimes there's loads of people in there.
(02:32):
I mean probably as many as 15 or16 people peak hours and
everyone faces the same way. No one talks to each other and
if anyone accidentally touches anyone else then it gets really
tense. But then the fewer people you're
with, it's even more awkward if no one talks.
But I feel like it encourages conversation.
And I don't know if you remember, but we did speak to a
(02:53):
lady in an elevator and I have since become very fond of her
and we've ended up seeing each other no less than.
You. We've ended up seeing each other
no less than four times. But The thing is, it's not just
like bumping into each other in the street.
You're spending probably 1520 minutes with this person in an
(03:14):
elevator, so if conversation gets going you end up knowing
their whole bloody lie. I make it a matter of recourse
not to speak to anyone. Any of the time you say that we
met someone in the elevator. I deliberately don't speak to
anyone. I face the wall.
I think about where I want to go.
I don't want anyone to talk to me.
Where I want to go which is usually just up or.
It's usually the Unfortunately, this elevator has a knack of
(03:37):
sometimes dropping me off at 2726.
I once had to get off at 9:00. Yeah, yeah.
So tell me about your new friend.
Well, she's called Phoebe. She's getting a shout out on the
show. I've only known her for three
days. You've already met her.
She started talking to us in in the first time we met because
she was complaining about the elevator as well.
And she said it's the slowest lift in McCarty City, which is
(03:58):
it's sort of an area of Manila that we're in now.
We bumped into each other again a few times and we had a little
chair. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're that guy
from the UK. Whatever.
And then I saw her yesterday andI thought, oh, it was a really
nice sort of interaction, me andher sort of chit chatting and
stuff. But like I said, it's sort of 15
minutes. And she told me that she's from
California or she's actually from Manila originally, but
(04:19):
moved to California, spent loadsof time there.
And she she said, oh, you're from the UK?
Yeah. I haven't got many good things
to say about the UK, I'm afraid.I'm not rude of it, wasn't it?
Well, I mean, there's two peoplewho don't live in the UK for
that reason. You know, there are loads of
things to do in the UK. That's not what we're saying.
But her words were this is verbatim.
England is really boring. In London there's nothing to do
(04:41):
apart from go to museums and seesome green spaces.
And Wales is also boring as well.
Why did she come in on Wales? I don't know, just because it's
somewhere. Did you?
Give her my driving license or something so that I spelt with
AU, yeah. No, it's just because it's
somewhere that she'd been. So she was sort of weighing in.
She said, you know, the UK isn'tlike the US where you can do
loads of things all the time. She thinks the UK is way too
(05:04):
expensive as well. And then she started asking me
some more personal questions andshe said, so are you sort of
single? And, and I said, wow, how old is
she? Well, she's probably, I don't
know if she listens to the show.I deliberately didn't mention
the show, just in case. Probably not then.
But but she's I'd be surprised if she was younger than 60.
(05:25):
OK, so she said. Are you saying yeah?
But she said, are you here alone?
And I said no, no, I'm visiting my my best friend another.
Guy that you saw who was staringat the opposite wall, not saying
anything. And she said, is he handsome?
Oh, and is he singing? Obviously not memorable because
she saw me it. Was amazing.
I thought, Oh my God. I said yeah, yeah, he is
handsome. We met we met together in the
(05:46):
lift and she was like, OK, So what you sort of doing here and
all this sort of stuff and we walked out of the elevators
together and she said all right,well, you know, I'll see you
around. Maybe she's on the. 38th floor
as well. No, she's on the 19th.
Why did you walk out together then?
Because we were going down. Oh, my God, Does the story.
Yeah. For anybody who's worried about
continuity, there we were on ourway down and she was on her way
(06:08):
to purchase one cigarette, the very last cigarette before she
gives up for the rest of her life.
OK, I've. Got a couple of questions.
Go on. Do you think she is indeed going
to be giving up? Yes.
Do you think that is our last cigarette?
I do think because I was there when she purchased it.
Do you know in the Philippines, guys, you can buy one cigarette
at a time? Yeah, you knew that.
Well, I knew in a lot of countries that's true.
Really. Yeah.
(06:28):
It's actually only true of countries where people accrue
extraordinary amounts of wealth that you can buy multiple
cigarettes in a pack and that's it.
In Brazil you buy one cigarette.Philippines, you buy one
cigarette. Buying one cigarette.
Surprisingly common. OK.
So you do think it's going to bethe last one?
Yeah, as a non-smoker, obviouslyI wouldn't know that I do.
I do think it is going to be herlast one.
She seemed genuine. She seemed sincere.
(06:49):
Do you feel the way that she feels about Wales and England,
about other countries, you personally?
Do I think that places are not worth visiting at all?
Yeah. And that they're boring?
I don't think so. You.
Don't feel that way about any other countries.
I think every country I've been to has something about it that
would make it worth visiting. I would have said maybe.
I've been to the vast majority of those countries that I'm
(07:11):
interested in already, but I'm sure there's a plethora of
countries that have got absolutely bags to offer.
So fundamentally you think she'sjust wrong, no?
No, I like her as a person. I think she's awesome and I'm
really glad we got an opportunity to to.
You as a person, I still think you're fundamentally wrong.
Quite a lot of the tyres. You can only What do we always
say, Alan? What do we always say?
You can only judge a place by your experiences in it.
(07:32):
OK, fair enough. Because I was going to, I was
going to ask you if you met someone from a country that you
thought was not that great. Yeah.
Would you tell them the way you felt about that place?
Right. Absolutely not.
No, I wouldn't have said that, especially not in the first,
first conversation. Maybe after 15 or 20 minutes in
a lift, when you've run out of things to say already, we might
get onto, you know, a subject about their own country and
(07:55):
where they're from. But no, I wouldn't have done
that at all. I wouldn't have done that.
Did you respect the? Bravery that she chose to do
that. She, you can tell she's lived in
California. Let's just say that.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Whatever that means. I'm not gonna go into any more
detail. Take from that what you will.
OK, so we've been riding a lot of elevators.
What else have we been up to? We've been on little sojourns
ourselves. Haven't.
We I thought you gonna say what else have been riding.
(08:16):
Yeah, well, nice little sag, wouldn't it?
It would have but. The shame is a missed
opportunity. The show is live so.
We took a jeepney for the first time yesterday, didn't we?
Together? I've taken them before, but to
my knowledge you hadn't ridden Ajeepney before.
Ridden many things that look like a jeepney and behave quite
like a jeepney. But because they're in different
countries, they, you know, they're, they're noming, their
(08:38):
naming is quite different. So like matatu in the African
continent, matatus are basicallyjeepneys.
They're sort of like soup top bosses.
Yeah, sure. You sort of jump on.
Yeah. So I mean money forward, yeah, I
was same sort of system because I was going to talk a little bit
about that. I mean, I'm sure that many of
you listening have already been to the Philippines and and maybe
(08:59):
if you haven't, you've probably seen jeepneys anyway because
they're quite iconic, but they are a mode of public transport
and they're essentially. Very public transport they're.
Essentially a converted Americanmilitary vehicle.
Did you know that? So after the Second World War,
there was a fleet of American military jeeps left here and the
(09:19):
Filipino people converted them. And, and now, I mean, they're
known for their sort of crazy colours and designs.
Some of them are chromed up to the teeth and they're really,
really cool. But they're almost like
limousine S, can't they? Yeah, they're long.
Yeah. I mean like a limousine.
They're like, yeah, they share the length of a limousine.
Yeah. Not the luxury, though.
Absolutely. All the price.
(09:40):
I mean they're pretty cheap. How much did we pay?
I think they start for from around 13 pesos.
Which is about, you know, sort of 10 pence maybe.
Yeah, about the price of one cigarette and you get on.
They kind of stop like buses, don't they?
At various places around the city.
Yeah. Although notably we had a aim to
get to a specific location and it required three individual
(10:01):
deep knee jerk to get there. So not the most efficient method
of transportation. I think if a public transport
system results in you having to take 3 of it to get somewhere,
that constitutes being broken. Yeah.
I mean, logistically I'm not sure they are the most
efficient. Still better than National Rail
in the UK though. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about
(10:21):
getting 1. You sort of just hop in the bag
and there's like, I mean, sometimes the sides are missing.
You could say that they're akin to windows.
You've usually got a driver at the front who's invariably on
his phone and then a front seat and then you can fit as many.
I've been doing some reading, but there weren't that many in
in the ones we got as many as 24passengers.
What the? Internet reckons that 24
passengers is the maximum. Yeah OK.
(10:43):
I reckon that we had about 6 people on our row and one of
them was sat predominantly on myknee.
It's interesting. Seeing him now.
It's interesting you should mention this because I was
looking at the way you were sitting in the in the jeepney.
Okay, well, let's talk about it.Yeah, what did?
You think and I thought your knees were quite prominent in
the corridor. Flared.
(11:05):
Well, yeah, I mean, Filipino people generally speaking, not
to offend anyone listening, but they do tend to be slightly
smaller than we are, right? So maybe it was kind of just
noticing that our legs or your legs were sticking out further
than theirs. Oh, you'd think I was slumped
forward a bit too much, like my knees were jutting.
Out. They were kind of protruding out
because there was still a coupleof spaces up top.
(11:27):
And you know, just imagine this,if you're not, if you're not
ridden deeply before, you kind of climb in the back and then
there's one like corridor and not everyone shuffles up when
someone gets out, do they? So sometimes people have to walk
past almost the entire the entire carriage or whatever you
call it. Yeah, sort of like down with the
in the crowd. Yeah, and and past people's
(11:48):
legs. It's kind of like shuffling out
of a cinema aisle. Do you?
Think it was rude of me to have my legs forward.
I didn't think it was rude because I'm not sure it caused
that many problems. Yeah, but you kind of see
everyone following suit and, youknow, putting their back right
up to the thing and and whatever.
So there's maybe an ethical system like jeepney etiquette.
Yeah, I mean, I was asleep for quite a lot of that.
(12:09):
Did you fall asleep? Yeah, completely unconscious.
Really. Did you not realise?
No. Well, obviously not.
No, I had no idea. No, I I mean the journey must
have been 10 minutes in one of the Jeepney's and I was out like
a light. Oh my goodness.
And no one stole anything from you.
I felt like you robbed me of some of my dignity.
But you know, Adam's bed where we're staying is quite rickety
and noisy. Oh my God, you don't sleep very
(12:31):
much. So you kind of wake me up a
little bit in the morning and itresults in some problematic Jeep
me behaviour later in the day. It's like a snowball effect.
So were my were my legs far intothe carriage or did you wake me
up in the middle of the night? Not sure which one's true.
Yeah, chicken and the egg. I have noticed that actually,
mate, and I did take the opportunity this morning.
I was tossing and turning and you were still snoozing and
(12:52):
stuff and I thought I can't possibly make this much noise
and expect it to be OK, so I decided to go down to the
swimming pool and spend an hour swimming instead.
That's nice of you. I have started using the mouth
tape again, taping my mouth closed at night.
As of you. Yeah, You have to do that
together. Tons of the fans of the show
might think that's very, very strange, but it's been a
recurring theme on in the history of Tripology.
(13:13):
The Me and Adam tape. Our mouths closed at night has a
number of health benefits. It's really worth a try.
So that's been good, hasn't it? But I have found myself blowing
through the tape in the night. I had a bit of a stuffy nose so
I found myself like waking you up to my cheeks inflating as I'm
pushing air outwards. Yeah, just puffing the bits of
(13:33):
tape off, as you know, up into the sky.
No, I'm enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it.
And I would encourage you guys, if you've not mouth tape before,
you know, do give it a spin. I do it because you do it.
And I've used myself as a Guineapig and therefore you can feel
the health benefits. So I don't sleep a lot, but the
sleep I do get is very. Well, we're the only travel show
(13:55):
in the world that talks about lifts, Jeep, knees and mouth
taping all in the first half. God knows what will happen in
the second-half. All I know is this podcast is
growing at a rate slightly faster than any of the travel
podcast on the planet. And that's going to continue
when we see you after a brief meditation break.
Alan, we should make a place where fans of the show can
listen to episodes, read articles and maybe contact us.
(14:18):
Done it What? Topologypodcast.com.
Should we put a link in the description?
It's already there. You are good.
Like a Californian woman insulting A colonialist nature
within the confines of a 39 floor elevator.
Allow your conscious mind to return into your brain as we
(14:38):
embark on in the rest of the episode, everyone.
What an eclectic first half. And it's about to get slightly
less eclectic because there's anitem on the show.
It's not done very often, but when it is done, boy oh boy does
it evoke a huge reaction. The item is of.
Course, rice for breakfast, ricefor breakfast.
(15:01):
You come and have rice for breakfast.
OK, mate, we know that going to a new country is an opportunity
to talk about a new cuisine. And we are in the Philippines
somewhere that gets a bit of a bad rap.
I mean, Filipino food by and large.
I'm going to go on records to say this.
I've had a lot of great Thai food, a lot of great Vietnamese
food. We've had some fantastic
(15:23):
Filipino food. Do you think it's fair to judge
Filipino food against other cuisines in Southeast Asia?
I with food basically just absorb the opinions of Anthony
Bourdain, the late great as my own, and he said that he thinks
Filipino food lacks identity. Sure, I think.
(15:45):
He said that or he alluded to that, and I'm going to absorb
that as my own opinion. I think it is a strong cuisine,
but because it's got Spanish influence, it's got Latin
American influence, it's got. American, of course, we've seen.
I just think it lacks a little bit of identity.
Yeah, it's strange. So our biggest bugbear up until
this point, because we have had some great food, is that it
(16:07):
seems like the sort of food you might eat with chopsticks.
But, and we are lovers of chopsticks.
I love it. But but none of the dishes that
we've had, apart from the Chinese food we had last night,
did we eat with chopsticks. When I was given a pair of
chopsticks by that Chinese man, it made me happier than I had
been previously. So it was.
(16:28):
It's from that bit of feeling alone.
I know, I really miss chopsticks.
It is quite funny actually, talking about chopsticks and and
using them because I remember when, you know, what would it
have been 1010, eleven years agoor whatever, I came back home
for the first time after being in Southeast Asia for a total of
eight months or something, having learned to use chopsticks
quite well. And I remember going back having
(16:48):
like dinner with my friends or family or whatever this was.
This was back when, you know, people in the West didn't use
chopsticks that much. Yeah.
And if they did, they tied like elastic around the top so they
could use it. And I remember thinking at
dinner table, like, oh, yeah, should we get some Chinese food
or should we get some? It was like a sort of 1
upmanship, kind of popping my chest out, like, oh, what?
What? You can't use chopsticks?
(17:09):
Are you still using an iPhone 4 for Chinese food?
OK. Is that a break up of all
offence on the first day? If the girl doesn't know how to
use chopsticks, I mean, it'd be pretty weird because she'd
probably be Asian, so it's unlikely.
Alan, so nice for breakfast. No, no break.
(17:31):
Uppable. I mean, I've got to hold my
hands up, mate. I do notice the way people hold
cutlery. Yeah, I am one of those.
I I grew up in a household. And, Dad, I know you're
listening. I grew up in a household where
the way people hold cutlery was important.
You might say it was enforced. If it wasn't enforced, it was
joked about until, you know, youchanged your behaviour.
And I do think that the fork goes in one hand, the knife goes
(17:52):
in the other. If you hold it in a strange way,
you know, obviously some people holding forks like it's the
first time they've ever seen a fork in their life.
I have a. Very very close friend who dated
someone who held a fork and a knife in a very unusual way and
it did put them off. That's amazing.
Are you going to well, maybe talk about that at the Patreon
section? If you could show us the way
that this person holds a. Fork.
Yeah, I'd love to in the Patreonsection.
(18:13):
But talking about things that are going to put people off, we
have got 11 item to go into detail about today and it is, it
is iconic, it is controversial, it is incredibly popular.
We're going to talk about the Ballute.
Oh, I've heard of the ballute. I've seen the ballute.
I've watched you eat the ballute.
Yeah, have I? Well, it actually no, because it
was a tripping point blooming forfeit kind of thing, wasn't
(18:36):
it? Yeah, it was last week.
Yeah. So the forfeit was that I had to
eat balloon. And if you don't know what
balloon is, you're going to makeme describe what it is.
I think that's live on air. It is a fertilized and incubated
duck egg. It kind of turns into a duck
embryo. It doesn't sound great, does it?
(18:56):
It doesn't sound great. I think may be important to say
at the top of the item that the way that we eat eggs in the West
exclusively unfertilized. Yeah, that's just a cultural
difference. There are places that eat and
enjoy eggs that have been fertilized.
Primarily, and as two people that have worked on not just
chicken farms, but the same chicken farm, we know our way
(19:16):
around an egg, don't we? Yep.
And who knows whether some of those were fertilized or not, if
we're being honest. We worked on a on a farm in
which there were Roosters in with hens.
Let's call them hens. I don't mean to use the French
flag. And I would be surprised there
wasn't at least a little bit of fertilization going on from what
I saw. Oh, from the atrocities that the
(19:38):
Roosters were committing on on an hourly basis.
Yeah, and we would take those hands, take those eggs, gather
them up and deliver them around the local neighborhood.
Yeah, yeah. So if you've never worked on a
chicken farm, I would encourage you to do so.
Some of the stuff you're going to see, it's going to be eye
opening. It's not nice.
Roosters really are. They're bastards.
(19:59):
They're horrible. Not a huge fan of the rooster
community here. We hate to say it, and we know
that some of you guys subscribe to our Patreon, but Roosters cut
it out. But back to the the balloon.
So incredibly popular. You see them sold on on street
corners in the evening, usually just one, one vendor, 1 seller
(20:20):
with a cart and they've got a number of eggs.
And these have been, like I say,they've been fertilized and then
incubated. That's the important thing
actually, because obviously a fertilized egg, as we saw on the
farm, yeah, If they're taken dayone, yeah, then it's just a
normal egg. But it specifically has to be
kept warm for an extended periodof time and incubated in order
(20:42):
to become balut. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's not that appetizing an idea, I don't
think difficult for people that have never, never experienced
that sort of thing. And then we might go into the
ethics as well. Apparently they are of Chinese
origin dating back to the 1830s.And what's quite interesting
(21:02):
about this is that in the Philippines now, I mean, we see
them on street corners, incredibly popular sort of
street food if you like. Some people eat them every day
without fail. I mean when we were down there
we saw 2 ladies just have an evening and one lady had three
in front of us. In the time it took you to eat a
balloon, I saw four of the people eat 1.
Yeah. And, and like I say, it's even,
it's usual to have more than one.
(21:24):
But in the olden days, back in the 1830s, whatever it was back
in China, it was usually for therather wealthy.
It was seen as a delicacy and something that was for the the
higher classes and that sort of stuff.
So usually it sort of happens the other way around now, things
that were for poor people and now become really expensive,
like oysters. Avocado really.
Well, I mean, avocados are a diamond dozen in some places,
(21:47):
and now they're considered a luxury fruit.
Thanks to Pret a Manger now. So going back to the blue, I
mean, it's it's still served in the shell.
You still eat it in the shell. You can buy one.
I mean, they're super, super cheap, 27 pesos, I think we
paid. So yeah, pretty, pretty cheap.
He says we, because we use the company card.
Talk me through the specific visceral process of consuming
(22:11):
the ballute from start to finish.
I couldn't help but notice you cracked it on a nail.
Yeah, so the the cart itself wasjust a wooden kind of table if
you like. I didn't really know what to
expect on the inside is how I was feeling.
It was my first balloon. And it's important to say this,
I've been to the Philippines before.
This was 10 and 10 years ago, and I missed the opportunity to
(22:32):
try balloon. And I do regret that.
It's one of my food, food regrets.
I do think you should, you should try if you're really
interested in food and food culture.
Now. I picked up the egg and the lady
was kind of just egging me on. If you'll pardon the pun.
Yeah, thanks very much. But I cracked the egg on a nail
and I didn't realise at the timethat there's actually soup
(22:53):
inside. Yeah, so there's kind of this,
this liquid, this salty liquid, there's a little bit of
sweetness to it actually. And you want to make sure you
save that because it is tasty. So you you crack it on a hard
surface, make sure you just crack the top off.
Yeah. Suck out the the soup.
Yeah, you say soup. Yeah, it's not.
It's the amniotic fluid of the duck embryo.
(23:15):
Yeah, OK. I prefer soup.
Suck out the amniotic fluid of the duck embryo.
Yeah, exactly. Which is pretty delicious.
Not too dissimilar to maybe a Shaolong Bao or some sort of
Chinese soup dumpling, I think if we can say that.
And then you peel away the the shell up until the point you can
sort of see what you're eating or or not, and then you just
(23:36):
take take bites out of it. It looked to me like quite a
vascular yolk. Yeah, attached to a sort of
gelatinous duck, baby shaped. Yeah, yeah.
Obviously the the older the egg is or the longer it's been
incubated for, the further developed the duck embryo is.
Yeah. OK.
So you know, that's important tobear in mind, isn't it?
(23:58):
Because if you don't want to be confronted with almost, yeah,
you get feathers, a head, a beak, almost a fully formed
duckling. Yeah.
OK. You know that that is quite,
quite confronting. But then there's also this
hardened albumen bit at the bottom, which is more like
(24:18):
cartilage. I would say if you've ever had
cartilage, a bit of gristle, it's difficult to eat, difficult
to chew is I wouldn't have said that part is the most enjoyable
experience, but it is surprisingly tasty.
I will say. Yeah.
Well, talk me through the flavours.
I do want to talk about the ethics of a little bit.
OK, talk me through the flavoursof the actual yolk duck
combination. Yeah.
So it's pretty rich. I mean it is also often seasoned
(24:38):
with a bit of salt and also somevinegar.
You can, you know, sort of sauces and stuff you might use,
but a salty egg yolk for me is, is really delicious.
So if you like salty egg yolks, you'll love this.
It's probably a little bit richer than a normal egg yolk.
And then of course, you've got the flavour of the, the soup as
well, which as I said, it's got a sweetness to it.
(24:58):
It's obviously quite eggy. And yeah, the texture is, is
something akin to, I don't know,I don't want to say sort of an
organ or meat, but it's, it's, it's got some texture to it,
hasn't it? Yeah, I, I, I think we should
weigh in on the ethics of it because people will be very,
very interested. It's one of the more
controversial things you've evereaten, probably.
(25:21):
Yeah, there's probably a top tenwe could talk about and maybe
Balut would be in there, but I don't know if I, I, I want to
put it in that category. So maybe a little sort of
discussion about it would help me do.
That, Well, I think, yeah, I think that people like to put
Balut in a category of unethicaleating because obviously it's a,
it's an embryo, which is a very,very young potential to be an
(25:44):
animal. Yeah, sure.
It's a living thing, right? And they're just boiled.
Yeah. So that as a an optic looks bad,
doesn't it? It's a It's an embryo that's
boiled alive. Yes, yeah, I, I can totally
understand. I think because because things
to me in terms of eating animalsin general or consuming animal
(26:04):
proteins and having sort of a knowledge of livestock farming
and the meat industry, for me it's a lot more sort of
horizontal. You would be of the perspective
that if you consume animal products then balut is no
different because it's the potential to be an animal.
Yeah, I, I think, I think this probably comes with eating many
(26:27):
dishes around the world and travelling and, you know,
experiencing food with other cultures.
For me it is it is much more horizontal.
I really do believe where this sits with me is that if you are
comfortable eating meat and you eat it on a regular basis, I
think you probably should be a little bit more open minded to
eating something like this. I'm not for one second saying
they're absolutely exactly the same because there are some
(26:48):
people that will eat maybe mutton but not lamb, or they'll
eat beef but not veal or whatever.
I think their argument is that it hasn't.
Had a life. Had a life.
Opportunity for life, I mean. Well, I suppose it depends
whether you consider that that embryo has the capacity to feel
anything at all at the stage at which it's boiled.
I think that lots of people would argue no, yeah, it's just
(27:11):
the potential for a life, and then it's ended by boiling.
But there are some people that think, you know, that, that it
does feel pain and that's problematic.
Yeah. And I think probably a lot of
people listening to this, this might resonate with them.
But if, if we all asked ourselves more questions about
what we ate on a regular basis, I do, I do really believe that
more and more people would startbecoming vegan or vegetarian.
(27:33):
Yeah, because it is. If you think it's unethical to
boil a duckling alive, whether it's, you know, about to become
a duckling or if it has lived onthe earth for, I don't know, a
week or, or a month or whatever,then where's the threshold?
You know how how long does a chicken or a duck have to live
before it's OK to kill it for then you to eat it?
(27:54):
Well, that's it. I would argue that it's more
unethical to consume sourced, battery farmed animal meat.
For an animal that spent his whole life suffering in a
horrible cage in a pen, living in its own feces, full of fear,
a mammal that has the capacity to love its young, I would argue
that it is inarguably more than ethical.
(28:16):
Go to the supermarket, tell everyone you love animals, go
and pick up some supermarket beef in a package, not give two
thoughts to the fact that that creature has sustained that life
for suffering. Consume it thinking, Oh yeah,
that's it, that's how I feel. And then with that same
quizzical eye, look at people who consume Berlut and think
(28:36):
it's some barbaric thing. I think that in actual fact, we
should all look at the way we consume products through a
completely different lens, if that's animal products or not.
I mean, there's ethical arguments to be made either way.
I personally think we should tryand like, source the most
sustainable, most ethical foodstuffs we can.
(28:57):
And maybe there's a way to do that that involves animal
products. I don't know.
Yeah, no, totally. I do think if we all reduced our
meat consumption, if we all learned more about industries
like the dairy industry, the meat industry, of course the egg
industry as well-being one of them, then you know better
things would happen for the animals.
And I'm sure that we're a long way off before, before that ever
happens. But when you come to somewhere
(29:17):
like the Philippines or anywherethat does have these, these
cultural differences that, you know, were worth exploring in
my, in my opinion, it, it's not like Balu is this thing that
they used to eat, eat 100 years ago and you're, you've got to go
to a specific region or restaurant, right?
And now it's trying to look. Down upon practice, like whale
hunting, that has terrible, terrible ramification.
Totally. Yeah.
I mean, it's it's eaten. Every day, every evening, you
(29:40):
know, on the streets, on every single corner around Manila and
probably elsewhere in the Philippines as well.
So if the question is would I eat it again, the answer is
probably in, you know, tonight. Well, I guess.
It also raises a little questionabout what kind of traveller
that you want to be. You have an option when you're a
traveller. Do you go to a place and
wholeheartedly throw yourself into the culture culinarily in
(30:03):
terms of what music you listen to?
Do you meet locals, befriend people, have interactions?
Throw yourself into all aspects of a culture, or do you bring
some of your Western biases withyou?
Do you draw the line? OK, well, I'm going to listen to
Filippo in music, but I'm not going to eat the kind of eggs
that the Filipinos eat, you know?
Where do you draw your line? Where do your ethics begin and
your cultural practices start and end?
(30:25):
I think that it's really important to travel with this
ornithological approach where you look at all the practices
and make your own opinions from there.
I think that's a bit of a serious note to end the episode
of Topology on, but it's that kind of flip flopping between
the enigmatic, the wonderful, the, the comedic and the
brilliantly insightful introspective that means with
(30:45):
the fastest going travel podcaston planet Earth.
And we want you to join those conversations.
How can you do that to join the?Conversations.
You can jump on our website, tripologypodcast.com, where
there's a contact form. We'd love to hear from you.
Well, we've got Instagram. Dot com yeah, it's at Tripology
podcast. There's a plethora of ways that
you can get in touch and we're working towards some very, very
(31:08):
exciting stuff. Maybe not next week, but maybe
the week after we're going to have huge announcements that are
going to shake the very fabric, the very ground of the
tripological universe that we'vecreated.
And we want you to be a part of it if you want to be a part of
it. And you think, God, this sounds
like the there's something big on the horizon.
What if I get a part of it now as opposed to a little bit
later? Maybe that'll come with some
(31:29):
additional benefits. It will go to
patreon.com/tropology podcast. Become a Patreon, join the
community. There's a host of benefits on
there. And some of them you really want
to get on sooner rather than later.
Fastest growing podcast. Yeah, that's right.
Become a Patreon subscriber today is better than if you've
become one next week. And if you're worried about.
(31:49):
Getting your money's worth. We're going to go off to the
Patreon section now, which is called the Lost and Found and
I've got 3 little Filipino desserts just behind the camera
over there and we're going, we're going to eat them live on
air 24 hours early and. It's was eating a cake.
I can't believe our luck. Let's go there right now and
we'll see you all next week. We'll see you there.
Bye.
You're listening to the fastest growing travel podcast in the
world. That's facts.
Hello, Welcome to this episode of Topology.
(00:20):
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever elevated Adam.
I'm on the verge of getting a Nosebleed.
We're ever so high, Alan. Why is that cause?
Because we're, because we're at 38 floors, is it 38 or 37?
We're on 38, the building has 44, and then there's some
penthouses up top. I met a man in the elevator.
(00:42):
He was going to the penthouse and he was ever so flamboyantly
dressed. That's what I knew.
He was going to the penthouse before I even see him.
Rich Botany pushed. What was he wearing?
Go and tell me. Talk me throughout the outfit.
Call a gold chain some diamonds in his teeth.
Yeah. I mean, we are, of course, still
in Manila, still in the Philippines, ruining the
decision to extend now at what we've dubbed Tripology HQ.
(01:04):
Yeah, the building is so tall and the lifts are so slow that
over the last few days when we've been gallivanting around
the building, around the foyer, just sort of moseying around the
the area outside the hotel, I dofeel like I've spent a
ridiculous amount of time in theelevator.
And I know that we spoke about it on the last show, but a few
(01:26):
things have happened to me over the last two days.
I honestly feel like being in those elevators, I've spent more
time with them than I have with you.
More time with the elevators. No, no.
With the people inside the elevators, you end up spending
so much time with the people you're in the lift with the
towards the end of it, you know,sort of their life story if you
end up talking. Have you got a new item you'd
(01:47):
like to announce? Stories from the elevator.
Yeah, we're doing a spin off in the Patreon section.
No, I mean, it's it's been so awkward a few times because you
know, when you go into a lift, Idon't know how many travel
podcasts are talking about the dynamic inside an elevator.
A few, but we're about to. There's been a few occasions
when there's been so few people in there but no one talks.
(02:09):
Yeah, well, that's normal thoughin an elevator, isn't it?
You have. I'd be weirder if you got into
an elevator and everyone was like, hey, a newbie.
I mean, I don't know what the psychology is behind it.
I'm sure there's a Scandinavian word that sort of explains it
really well. But I feel like when there's
many people in there and some people, there's some, some
people, sometimes there's loads of people in there.
(02:32):
I mean probably as many as 15 or16 people peak hours and
everyone faces the same way. No one talks to each other and
if anyone accidentally touches anyone else then it gets really
tense. But then the fewer people you're
with, it's even more awkward if no one talks.
But I feel like it encourages conversation.
And I don't know if you remember, but we did speak to a
(02:53):
lady in an elevator and I have since become very fond of her
and we've ended up seeing each other no less than.
You. We've ended up seeing each other
no less than four times. But The thing is, it's not just
like bumping into each other in the street.
You're spending probably 1520 minutes with this person in an
(03:14):
elevator, so if conversation gets going you end up knowing
their whole bloody lie. I make it a matter of recourse
not to speak to anyone. Any of the time you say that we
met someone in the elevator. I deliberately don't speak to
anyone. I face the wall.
I think about where I want to go.
I don't want anyone to talk to me.
Where I want to go which is usually just up or.
It's usually the Unfortunately, this elevator has a knack of
(03:37):
sometimes dropping me off at 2726.
I once had to get off at 9:00. Yeah, yeah.
So tell me about your new friend.
Well, she's called Phoebe. She's getting a shout out on the
show. I've only known her for three
days. You've already met her.
She started talking to us in in the first time we met because
she was complaining about the elevator as well.
And she said it's the slowest lift in McCarty City, which is
(03:58):
it's sort of an area of Manila that we're in now.
We bumped into each other again a few times and we had a little
chair. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're that guy
from the UK. Whatever.
And then I saw her yesterday andI thought, oh, it was a really
nice sort of interaction, me andher sort of chit chatting and
stuff. But like I said, it's sort of 15
minutes. And she told me that she's from
California or she's actually from Manila originally, but
(04:19):
moved to California, spent loadsof time there.
And she she said, oh, you're from the UK?
Yeah. I haven't got many good things
to say about the UK, I'm afraid.I'm not rude of it, wasn't it?
Well, I mean, there's two peoplewho don't live in the UK for
that reason. You know, there are loads of
things to do in the UK. That's not what we're saying.
But her words were this is verbatim.
England is really boring. In London there's nothing to do
(04:41):
apart from go to museums and seesome green spaces.
And Wales is also boring as well.
Why did she come in on Wales? I don't know, just because it's
somewhere. Did you?
Give her my driving license or something so that I spelt with
AU, yeah. No, it's just because it's
somewhere that she'd been. So she was sort of weighing in.
She said, you know, the UK isn'tlike the US where you can do
loads of things all the time. She thinks the UK is way too
(05:04):
expensive as well. And then she started asking me
some more personal questions andshe said, so are you sort of
single? And, and I said, wow, how old is
she? Well, she's probably, I don't
know if she listens to the show.I deliberately didn't mention
the show, just in case. Probably not then.
But but she's I'd be surprised if she was younger than 60.
(05:25):
OK, so she said. Are you saying yeah?
But she said, are you here alone?
And I said no, no, I'm visiting my my best friend another.
Guy that you saw who was staringat the opposite wall, not saying
anything. And she said, is he handsome?
Oh, and is he singing? Obviously not memorable because
she saw me it. Was amazing.
I thought, Oh my God. I said yeah, yeah, he is
handsome. We met we met together in the
(05:46):
lift and she was like, OK, So what you sort of doing here and
all this sort of stuff and we walked out of the elevators
together and she said all right,well, you know, I'll see you
around. Maybe she's on the. 38th floor
as well. No, she's on the 19th.
Why did you walk out together then?
Because we were going down. Oh, my God, Does the story.
Yeah. For anybody who's worried about
continuity, there we were on ourway down and she was on her way
(06:08):
to purchase one cigarette, the very last cigarette before she
gives up for the rest of her life.
OK, I've. Got a couple of questions.
Go on. Do you think she is indeed going
to be giving up? Yes.
Do you think that is our last cigarette?
I do think because I was there when she purchased it.
Do you know in the Philippines, guys, you can buy one cigarette
at a time? Yeah, you knew that.
Well, I knew in a lot of countries that's true.
Really. Yeah.
(06:28):
It's actually only true of countries where people accrue
extraordinary amounts of wealth that you can buy multiple
cigarettes in a pack and that's it.
In Brazil you buy one cigarette.Philippines, you buy one
cigarette. Buying one cigarette.
Surprisingly common. OK.
So you do think it's going to bethe last one?
Yeah, as a non-smoker, obviouslyI wouldn't know that I do.
I do think it is going to be herlast one.
She seemed genuine. She seemed sincere.
(06:49):
Do you feel the way that she feels about Wales and England,
about other countries, you personally?
Do I think that places are not worth visiting at all?
Yeah. And that they're boring?
I don't think so. You.
Don't feel that way about any other countries.
I think every country I've been to has something about it that
would make it worth visiting. I would have said maybe.
I've been to the vast majority of those countries that I'm
(07:11):
interested in already, but I'm sure there's a plethora of
countries that have got absolutely bags to offer.
So fundamentally you think she'sjust wrong, no?
No, I like her as a person. I think she's awesome and I'm
really glad we got an opportunity to to.
You as a person, I still think you're fundamentally wrong.
Quite a lot of the tyres. You can only What do we always
say, Alan? What do we always say?
You can only judge a place by your experiences in it.
(07:32):
OK, fair enough. Because I was going to, I was
going to ask you if you met someone from a country that you
thought was not that great. Yeah.
Would you tell them the way you felt about that place?
Right. Absolutely not.
No, I wouldn't have said that, especially not in the first,
first conversation. Maybe after 15 or 20 minutes in
a lift, when you've run out of things to say already, we might
get onto, you know, a subject about their own country and
(07:55):
where they're from. But no, I wouldn't have done
that at all. I wouldn't have done that.
Did you respect the? Bravery that she chose to do
that. She, you can tell she's lived in
California. Let's just say that.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Whatever that means. I'm not gonna go into any more
detail. Take from that what you will.
OK, so we've been riding a lot of elevators.
What else have we been up to? We've been on little sojourns
ourselves. Haven't.
We I thought you gonna say what else have been riding.
(08:16):
Yeah, well, nice little sag, wouldn't it?
It would have but. The shame is a missed
opportunity. The show is live so.
We took a jeepney for the first time yesterday, didn't we?
Together? I've taken them before, but to
my knowledge you hadn't ridden Ajeepney before.
Ridden many things that look like a jeepney and behave quite
like a jeepney. But because they're in different
countries, they, you know, they're, they're noming, their
(08:38):
naming is quite different. So like matatu in the African
continent, matatus are basicallyjeepneys.
They're sort of like soup top bosses.
Yeah, sure. You sort of jump on.
Yeah. So I mean money forward, yeah, I
was same sort of system because I was going to talk a little bit
about that. I mean, I'm sure that many of
you listening have already been to the Philippines and and maybe
(08:59):
if you haven't, you've probably seen jeepneys anyway because
they're quite iconic, but they are a mode of public transport
and they're essentially. Very public transport they're.
Essentially a converted Americanmilitary vehicle.
Did you know that? So after the Second World War,
there was a fleet of American military jeeps left here and the
(09:19):
Filipino people converted them. And, and now, I mean, they're
known for their sort of crazy colours and designs.
Some of them are chromed up to the teeth and they're really,
really cool. But they're almost like
limousine S, can't they? Yeah, they're long.
Yeah. I mean like a limousine.
They're like, yeah, they share the length of a limousine.
Yeah. Not the luxury, though.
Absolutely. All the price.
(09:40):
I mean they're pretty cheap. How much did we pay?
I think they start for from around 13 pesos.
Which is about, you know, sort of 10 pence maybe.
Yeah, about the price of one cigarette and you get on.
They kind of stop like buses, don't they?
At various places around the city.
Yeah. Although notably we had a aim to
get to a specific location and it required three individual
(10:01):
deep knee jerk to get there. So not the most efficient method
of transportation. I think if a public transport
system results in you having to take 3 of it to get somewhere,
that constitutes being broken. Yeah.
I mean, logistically I'm not sure they are the most
efficient. Still better than National Rail
in the UK though. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about
(10:21):
getting 1. You sort of just hop in the bag
and there's like, I mean, sometimes the sides are missing.
You could say that they're akin to windows.
You've usually got a driver at the front who's invariably on
his phone and then a front seat and then you can fit as many.
I've been doing some reading, but there weren't that many in
in the ones we got as many as 24passengers.
What the? Internet reckons that 24
passengers is the maximum. Yeah OK.
(10:43):
I reckon that we had about 6 people on our row and one of
them was sat predominantly on myknee.
It's interesting. Seeing him now.
It's interesting you should mention this because I was
looking at the way you were sitting in the in the jeepney.
Okay, well, let's talk about it.Yeah, what did?
You think and I thought your knees were quite prominent in
the corridor. Flared.
(11:05):
Well, yeah, I mean, Filipino people generally speaking, not
to offend anyone listening, but they do tend to be slightly
smaller than we are, right? So maybe it was kind of just
noticing that our legs or your legs were sticking out further
than theirs. Oh, you'd think I was slumped
forward a bit too much, like my knees were jutting.
Out. They were kind of protruding out
because there was still a coupleof spaces up top.
(11:27):
And you know, just imagine this,if you're not, if you're not
ridden deeply before, you kind of climb in the back and then
there's one like corridor and not everyone shuffles up when
someone gets out, do they? So sometimes people have to walk
past almost the entire the entire carriage or whatever you
call it. Yeah, sort of like down with the
in the crowd. Yeah, and and past people's
(11:48):
legs. It's kind of like shuffling out
of a cinema aisle. Do you?
Think it was rude of me to have my legs forward.
I didn't think it was rude because I'm not sure it caused
that many problems. Yeah, but you kind of see
everyone following suit and, youknow, putting their back right
up to the thing and and whatever.
So there's maybe an ethical system like jeepney etiquette.
Yeah, I mean, I was asleep for quite a lot of that.
(12:09):
Did you fall asleep? Yeah, completely unconscious.
Really. Did you not realise?
No. Well, obviously not.
No, I had no idea. No, I I mean the journey must
have been 10 minutes in one of the Jeepney's and I was out like
a light. Oh my goodness.
And no one stole anything from you.
I felt like you robbed me of some of my dignity.
But you know, Adam's bed where we're staying is quite rickety
and noisy. Oh my God, you don't sleep very
(12:31):
much. So you kind of wake me up a
little bit in the morning and itresults in some problematic Jeep
me behaviour later in the day. It's like a snowball effect.
So were my were my legs far intothe carriage or did you wake me
up in the middle of the night? Not sure which one's true.
Yeah, chicken and the egg. I have noticed that actually,
mate, and I did take the opportunity this morning.
I was tossing and turning and you were still snoozing and
(12:52):
stuff and I thought I can't possibly make this much noise
and expect it to be OK, so I decided to go down to the
swimming pool and spend an hour swimming instead.
That's nice of you. I have started using the mouth
tape again, taping my mouth closed at night.
As of you. Yeah, You have to do that
together. Tons of the fans of the show
might think that's very, very strange, but it's been a
recurring theme on in the history of Tripology.
(13:13):
The Me and Adam tape. Our mouths closed at night has a
number of health benefits. It's really worth a try.
So that's been good, hasn't it? But I have found myself blowing
through the tape in the night. I had a bit of a stuffy nose so
I found myself like waking you up to my cheeks inflating as I'm
pushing air outwards. Yeah, just puffing the bits of
(13:33):
tape off, as you know, up into the sky.
No, I'm enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it.
And I would encourage you guys, if you've not mouth tape before,
you know, do give it a spin. I do it because you do it.
And I've used myself as a Guineapig and therefore you can feel
the health benefits. So I don't sleep a lot, but the
sleep I do get is very. Well, we're the only travel show
(13:55):
in the world that talks about lifts, Jeep, knees and mouth
taping all in the first half. God knows what will happen in
the second-half. All I know is this podcast is
growing at a rate slightly faster than any of the travel
podcast on the planet. And that's going to continue
when we see you after a brief meditation break.
Alan, we should make a place where fans of the show can
listen to episodes, read articles and maybe contact us.
(14:18):
Done it What? Topologypodcast.com.
Should we put a link in the description?
It's already there. You are good.
Like a Californian woman insulting A colonialist nature
within the confines of a 39 floor elevator.
Allow your conscious mind to return into your brain as we
(14:38):
embark on in the rest of the episode, everyone.
What an eclectic first half. And it's about to get slightly
less eclectic because there's anitem on the show.
It's not done very often, but when it is done, boy oh boy does
it evoke a huge reaction. The item is of.
Course, rice for breakfast, ricefor breakfast.
(15:01):
You come and have rice for breakfast.
OK, mate, we know that going to a new country is an opportunity
to talk about a new cuisine. And we are in the Philippines
somewhere that gets a bit of a bad rap.
I mean, Filipino food by and large.
I'm going to go on records to say this.
I've had a lot of great Thai food, a lot of great Vietnamese
food. We've had some fantastic
(15:23):
Filipino food. Do you think it's fair to judge
Filipino food against other cuisines in Southeast Asia?
I with food basically just absorb the opinions of Anthony
Bourdain, the late great as my own, and he said that he thinks
Filipino food lacks identity. Sure, I think.
(15:45):
He said that or he alluded to that, and I'm going to absorb
that as my own opinion. I think it is a strong cuisine,
but because it's got Spanish influence, it's got Latin
American influence, it's got. American, of course, we've seen.
I just think it lacks a little bit of identity.
Yeah, it's strange. So our biggest bugbear up until
this point, because we have had some great food, is that it
(16:07):
seems like the sort of food you might eat with chopsticks.
But, and we are lovers of chopsticks.
I love it. But but none of the dishes that
we've had, apart from the Chinese food we had last night,
did we eat with chopsticks. When I was given a pair of
chopsticks by that Chinese man, it made me happier than I had
been previously. So it was.
(16:28):
It's from that bit of feeling alone.
I know, I really miss chopsticks.
It is quite funny actually, talking about chopsticks and and
using them because I remember when, you know, what would it
have been 1010, eleven years agoor whatever, I came back home
for the first time after being in Southeast Asia for a total of
eight months or something, having learned to use chopsticks
quite well. And I remember going back having
(16:48):
like dinner with my friends or family or whatever this was.
This was back when, you know, people in the West didn't use
chopsticks that much. Yeah.
And if they did, they tied like elastic around the top so they
could use it. And I remember thinking at
dinner table, like, oh, yeah, should we get some Chinese food
or should we get some? It was like a sort of 1
upmanship, kind of popping my chest out, like, oh, what?
What? You can't use chopsticks?
(17:09):
Are you still using an iPhone 4 for Chinese food?
OK. Is that a break up of all
offence on the first day? If the girl doesn't know how to
use chopsticks, I mean, it'd be pretty weird because she'd
probably be Asian, so it's unlikely.
Alan, so nice for breakfast. No, no break.
(17:31):
Uppable. I mean, I've got to hold my
hands up, mate. I do notice the way people hold
cutlery. Yeah, I am one of those.
I I grew up in a household. And, Dad, I know you're
listening. I grew up in a household where
the way people hold cutlery was important.
You might say it was enforced. If it wasn't enforced, it was
joked about until, you know, youchanged your behaviour.
And I do think that the fork goes in one hand, the knife goes
(17:52):
in the other. If you hold it in a strange way,
you know, obviously some people holding forks like it's the
first time they've ever seen a fork in their life.
I have a. Very very close friend who dated
someone who held a fork and a knife in a very unusual way and
it did put them off. That's amazing.
Are you going to well, maybe talk about that at the Patreon
section? If you could show us the way
that this person holds a. Fork.
Yeah, I'd love to in the Patreonsection.
(18:13):
But talking about things that are going to put people off, we
have got 11 item to go into detail about today and it is, it
is iconic, it is controversial, it is incredibly popular.
We're going to talk about the Ballute.
Oh, I've heard of the ballute. I've seen the ballute.
I've watched you eat the ballute.
Yeah, have I? Well, it actually no, because it
was a tripping point blooming forfeit kind of thing, wasn't
(18:36):
it? Yeah, it was last week.
Yeah. So the forfeit was that I had to
eat balloon. And if you don't know what
balloon is, you're going to makeme describe what it is.
I think that's live on air. It is a fertilized and incubated
duck egg. It kind of turns into a duck
embryo. It doesn't sound great, does it?
(18:56):
It doesn't sound great. I think may be important to say
at the top of the item that the way that we eat eggs in the West
exclusively unfertilized. Yeah, that's just a cultural
difference. There are places that eat and
enjoy eggs that have been fertilized.
Primarily, and as two people that have worked on not just
chicken farms, but the same chicken farm, we know our way
(19:16):
around an egg, don't we? Yep.
And who knows whether some of those were fertilized or not, if
we're being honest. We worked on a on a farm in
which there were Roosters in with hens.
Let's call them hens. I don't mean to use the French
flag. And I would be surprised there
wasn't at least a little bit of fertilization going on from what
I saw. Oh, from the atrocities that the
(19:38):
Roosters were committing on on an hourly basis.
Yeah, and we would take those hands, take those eggs, gather
them up and deliver them around the local neighborhood.
Yeah, yeah. So if you've never worked on a
chicken farm, I would encourage you to do so.
Some of the stuff you're going to see, it's going to be eye
opening. It's not nice.
Roosters really are. They're bastards.
(19:59):
They're horrible. Not a huge fan of the rooster
community here. We hate to say it, and we know
that some of you guys subscribe to our Patreon, but Roosters cut
it out. But back to the the balloon.
So incredibly popular. You see them sold on on street
corners in the evening, usually just one, one vendor, 1 seller
(20:20):
with a cart and they've got a number of eggs.
And these have been, like I say,they've been fertilized and then
incubated. That's the important thing
actually, because obviously a fertilized egg, as we saw on the
farm, yeah, If they're taken dayone, yeah, then it's just a
normal egg. But it specifically has to be
kept warm for an extended periodof time and incubated in order
(20:42):
to become balut. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's not that appetizing an idea, I don't
think difficult for people that have never, never experienced
that sort of thing. And then we might go into the
ethics as well. Apparently they are of Chinese
origin dating back to the 1830s.And what's quite interesting
(21:02):
about this is that in the Philippines now, I mean, we see
them on street corners, incredibly popular sort of
street food if you like. Some people eat them every day
without fail. I mean when we were down there
we saw 2 ladies just have an evening and one lady had three
in front of us. In the time it took you to eat a
balloon, I saw four of the people eat 1.
Yeah. And, and like I say, it's even,
it's usual to have more than one.
(21:24):
But in the olden days, back in the 1830s, whatever it was back
in China, it was usually for therather wealthy.
It was seen as a delicacy and something that was for the the
higher classes and that sort of stuff.
So usually it sort of happens the other way around now, things
that were for poor people and now become really expensive,
like oysters. Avocado really.
Well, I mean, avocados are a diamond dozen in some places,
(21:47):
and now they're considered a luxury fruit.
Thanks to Pret a Manger now. So going back to the blue, I
mean, it's it's still served in the shell.
You still eat it in the shell. You can buy one.
I mean, they're super, super cheap, 27 pesos, I think we
paid. So yeah, pretty, pretty cheap.
He says we, because we use the company card.
Talk me through the specific visceral process of consuming
(22:11):
the ballute from start to finish.
I couldn't help but notice you cracked it on a nail.
Yeah, so the the cart itself wasjust a wooden kind of table if
you like. I didn't really know what to
expect on the inside is how I was feeling.
It was my first balloon. And it's important to say this,
I've been to the Philippines before.
This was 10 and 10 years ago, and I missed the opportunity to
(22:32):
try balloon. And I do regret that.
It's one of my food, food regrets.
I do think you should, you should try if you're really
interested in food and food culture.
Now. I picked up the egg and the lady
was kind of just egging me on. If you'll pardon the pun.
Yeah, thanks very much. But I cracked the egg on a nail
and I didn't realise at the timethat there's actually soup
(22:53):
inside. Yeah, so there's kind of this,
this liquid, this salty liquid, there's a little bit of
sweetness to it actually. And you want to make sure you
save that because it is tasty. So you you crack it on a hard
surface, make sure you just crack the top off.
Yeah. Suck out the the soup.
Yeah, you say soup. Yeah, it's not.
It's the amniotic fluid of the duck embryo.
(23:15):
Yeah, OK. I prefer soup.
Suck out the amniotic fluid of the duck embryo.
Yeah, exactly. Which is pretty delicious.
Not too dissimilar to maybe a Shaolong Bao or some sort of
Chinese soup dumpling, I think if we can say that.
And then you peel away the the shell up until the point you can
sort of see what you're eating or or not, and then you just
(23:36):
take take bites out of it. It looked to me like quite a
vascular yolk. Yeah, attached to a sort of
gelatinous duck, baby shaped. Yeah, yeah.
Obviously the the older the egg is or the longer it's been
incubated for, the further developed the duck embryo is.
Yeah. OK.
So you know, that's important tobear in mind, isn't it?
(23:58):
Because if you don't want to be confronted with almost, yeah,
you get feathers, a head, a beak, almost a fully formed
duckling. Yeah.
OK. You know that that is quite,
quite confronting. But then there's also this
hardened albumen bit at the bottom, which is more like
(24:18):
cartilage. I would say if you've ever had
cartilage, a bit of gristle, it's difficult to eat, difficult
to chew is I wouldn't have said that part is the most enjoyable
experience, but it is surprisingly tasty.
I will say. Yeah.
Well, talk me through the flavours.
I do want to talk about the ethics of a little bit.
OK, talk me through the flavoursof the actual yolk duck
combination. Yeah.
So it's pretty rich. I mean it is also often seasoned
(24:38):
with a bit of salt and also somevinegar.
You can, you know, sort of sauces and stuff you might use,
but a salty egg yolk for me is, is really delicious.
So if you like salty egg yolks, you'll love this.
It's probably a little bit richer than a normal egg yolk.
And then of course, you've got the flavour of the, the soup as
well, which as I said, it's got a sweetness to it.
(24:58):
It's obviously quite eggy. And yeah, the texture is, is
something akin to, I don't know,I don't want to say sort of an
organ or meat, but it's, it's, it's got some texture to it,
hasn't it? Yeah, I, I, I think we should
weigh in on the ethics of it because people will be very,
very interested. It's one of the more
controversial things you've evereaten, probably.
(25:21):
Yeah, there's probably a top tenwe could talk about and maybe
Balut would be in there, but I don't know if I, I, I want to
put it in that category. So maybe a little sort of
discussion about it would help me do.
That, Well, I think, yeah, I think that people like to put
Balut in a category of unethicaleating because obviously it's a,
it's an embryo, which is a very,very young potential to be an
(25:44):
animal. Yeah, sure.
It's a living thing, right? And they're just boiled.
Yeah. So that as a an optic looks bad,
doesn't it? It's a It's an embryo that's
boiled alive. Yes, yeah, I, I can totally
understand. I think because because things
to me in terms of eating animalsin general or consuming animal
(26:04):
proteins and having sort of a knowledge of livestock farming
and the meat industry, for me it's a lot more sort of
horizontal. You would be of the perspective
that if you consume animal products then balut is no
different because it's the potential to be an animal.
Yeah, I, I think, I think this probably comes with eating many
(26:27):
dishes around the world and travelling and, you know,
experiencing food with other cultures.
For me it is it is much more horizontal.
I really do believe where this sits with me is that if you are
comfortable eating meat and you eat it on a regular basis, I
think you probably should be a little bit more open minded to
eating something like this. I'm not for one second saying
they're absolutely exactly the same because there are some
(26:48):
people that will eat maybe mutton but not lamb, or they'll
eat beef but not veal or whatever.
I think their argument is that it hasn't.
Had a life. Had a life.
Opportunity for life, I mean. Well, I suppose it depends
whether you consider that that embryo has the capacity to feel
anything at all at the stage at which it's boiled.
I think that lots of people would argue no, yeah, it's just
(27:11):
the potential for a life, and then it's ended by boiling.
But there are some people that think, you know, that, that it
does feel pain and that's problematic.
Yeah. And I think probably a lot of
people listening to this, this might resonate with them.
But if, if we all asked ourselves more questions about
what we ate on a regular basis, I do, I do really believe that
more and more people would startbecoming vegan or vegetarian.
(27:33):
Yeah, because it is. If you think it's unethical to
boil a duckling alive, whether it's, you know, about to become
a duckling or if it has lived onthe earth for, I don't know, a
week or, or a month or whatever,then where's the threshold?
You know how how long does a chicken or a duck have to live
before it's OK to kill it for then you to eat it?
(27:54):
Well, that's it. I would argue that it's more
unethical to consume sourced, battery farmed animal meat.
For an animal that spent his whole life suffering in a
horrible cage in a pen, living in its own feces, full of fear,
a mammal that has the capacity to love its young, I would argue
that it is inarguably more than ethical.
(28:16):
Go to the supermarket, tell everyone you love animals, go
and pick up some supermarket beef in a package, not give two
thoughts to the fact that that creature has sustained that life
for suffering. Consume it thinking, Oh yeah,
that's it, that's how I feel. And then with that same
quizzical eye, look at people who consume Berlut and think
(28:36):
it's some barbaric thing. I think that in actual fact, we
should all look at the way we consume products through a
completely different lens, if that's animal products or not.
I mean, there's ethical arguments to be made either way.
I personally think we should tryand like, source the most
sustainable, most ethical foodstuffs we can.
(28:57):
And maybe there's a way to do that that involves animal
products. I don't know.
Yeah, no, totally. I do think if we all reduced our
meat consumption, if we all learned more about industries
like the dairy industry, the meat industry, of course the egg
industry as well-being one of them, then you know better
things would happen for the animals.
And I'm sure that we're a long way off before, before that ever
happens. But when you come to somewhere
(29:17):
like the Philippines or anywherethat does have these, these
cultural differences that, you know, were worth exploring in
my, in my opinion, it, it's not like Balu is this thing that
they used to eat, eat 100 years ago and you're, you've got to go
to a specific region or restaurant, right?
And now it's trying to look. Down upon practice, like whale
hunting, that has terrible, terrible ramification.
Totally. Yeah.
I mean, it's it's eaten. Every day, every evening, you
(29:40):
know, on the streets, on every single corner around Manila and
probably elsewhere in the Philippines as well.
So if the question is would I eat it again, the answer is
probably in, you know, tonight. Well, I guess.
It also raises a little questionabout what kind of traveller
that you want to be. You have an option when you're a
traveller. Do you go to a place and
wholeheartedly throw yourself into the culture culinarily in
(30:03):
terms of what music you listen to?
Do you meet locals, befriend people, have interactions?
Throw yourself into all aspects of a culture, or do you bring
some of your Western biases withyou?
Do you draw the line? OK, well, I'm going to listen to
Filippo in music, but I'm not going to eat the kind of eggs
that the Filipinos eat, you know?
Where do you draw your line? Where do your ethics begin and
your cultural practices start and end?
(30:25):
I think that it's really important to travel with this
ornithological approach where you look at all the practices
and make your own opinions from there.
I think that's a bit of a serious note to end the episode
of Topology on, but it's that kind of flip flopping between
the enigmatic, the wonderful, the, the comedic and the
brilliantly insightful introspective that means with
(30:45):
the fastest going travel podcaston planet Earth.
And we want you to join those conversations.
How can you do that to join the?Conversations.
You can jump on our website, tripologypodcast.com, where
there's a contact form. We'd love to hear from you.
Well, we've got Instagram. Dot com yeah, it's at Tripology
podcast. There's a plethora of ways that
you can get in touch and we're working towards some very, very
(31:08):
exciting stuff. Maybe not next week, but maybe
the week after we're going to have huge announcements that are
going to shake the very fabric, the very ground of the
tripological universe that we'vecreated.
And we want you to be a part of it if you want to be a part of
it. And you think, God, this sounds
like the there's something big on the horizon.
What if I get a part of it now as opposed to a little bit
later? Maybe that'll come with some
(31:29):
additional benefits. It will go to
patreon.com/tropology podcast. Become a Patreon, join the
community. There's a host of benefits on
there. And some of them you really want
to get on sooner rather than later.
Fastest growing podcast. Yeah, that's right.
Become a Patreon subscriber today is better than if you've
become one next week. And if you're worried about.
(31:49):
Getting your money's worth. We're going to go off to the
Patreon section now, which is called the Lost and Found and
I've got 3 little Filipino desserts just behind the camera
over there and we're going, we're going to eat them live on
air 24 hours early and. It's was eating a cake.
I can't believe our luck. Let's go there right now and
we'll see you all next week. We'll see you there.
Bye.
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