New Foods

Working with many cultured Phillipino's I have come to taste many new foods these past few months. Some quite tasty although their desciption and some, however simple they may seem, are not so tasty.
1- fried sardines- the whole sardine, eyes and mouth bones and all fried in oil and dunked in rice vinegar. Not so tasty and the whole thing looking at you before you devour it not so hot.
2- milk fish- a fish, a little bit bigger than a sardine, cooking in a pan and eaten by stripping the skin part way off and eating it. Not a big fan of fish, so, not so tasty.
3-Balut- a 6 day old fetus of a duck that is still in the egg. You boil it first like you would a hard boiled egg. The process of eating it goes- crack to top so that you have a little hole to drink the fluids out of, this part tastes like chicken broth. Next you eat the yolk. It tastes like a chicken egg yolk but much richer. Next you eat the little duckie. Although you think fear factor ducks, you cannot tell much that it is a little duck. It actually looks, (pardon the very disgusting description) like a big snot ball of shredded chicken. It tastes much like chicken. Although the horrible description, it is not that bad!
4- Whole shrimp- Legs, eyes shell and all! Not that bad!
I tell you, we have had a few potlucks and a party and when Phillipinos say food, they mean food! It is like Thanksgiving dinner every time we decide to eat!