A feast of local delicacies not for the faint-hearted
Culinary adventures consist of harmless desert and stomach churners such as duck embryo
MANILA, PHILIPPINES—“Dare me to eat this worm?” I asked, holding the raw, but dead, woodworm from its squirmy tip.
For a few pesos paid to an 8-year-old girl, a halfdozen “woodworms” — plucked one-by-one from fallen rotten trees in Filipino mangroves — are served with a side of vinegar to “cook” them in.
It was my latest (and most slippery) swallow in what proved a serious vacation feat: to eat all the weirdest, grossest, stomach-turning, PETA-offending treats that the Philippines has to offer.
Deep-fried crocodile, cheese ice cream, the unfortunately named chicken ass, raw woodworms and street-style duck fetuses are all mine — assuming I can stomach them. Delicious or disgusting? There’s only way to find out. Keso ice cream
What & Where: A classic ice cream cone — only cheddar-cheese-flavoured — is sold from colourful wooden carts on just about every street corner. (Keso is a pronounced as queso, or cheese in Spanish.)
The Ick Factor: Knee-jerk reaction to it is not great, as cheese plus sugar seem unlikely allies, but the sentiment doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Remember cheesecake?
Final Verdict: Disappointingly, my keso cone is sweet and tasty but too subtle; as usual, there’s simply not enough cheese. Eat up and enjoy your lazy street cred. Chicken ass
What & Where: Pwet ng manok, or “chicken ass,” is marinated, skewered, and grilled or blackened over charcoal.
Keso ice cream, which contains cheese and sugar, at first seemed like an odd mix, but then again, cheesecake does work
Chicken ass is popular as streetmeat from ample vendors, or as an appetizer in local restaurants.
The Ick Factor: High, if you can’t get over the ass-thing, which I cannot. But if you can grill chicken feet, head and intestines, why not ass?
Final Verdict: Forget about asses and you’re chowing down on a familiar, kinda-boring spicy kebab. For the record, tastes like chicken. Crocodile sisig
What & Where: A challenge to find, but spotted finally on the menu at Ka Inato, a local restaurant in the province of Palawan. Sisig is native Filipino food-prep where animal parts — whether pig head, ox brain or croc meat — are boiled, then broiled, then grilled.
The Ick Factor: Medium, at most. Any reservations of thinly sliced crocodile meat are easily offset by the promise of a spicy-battered deep-frying. And since the Philippines is home to some of the biggest crocs on the planet, remember a crocodile would most certainly eat you.
Final Verdict: Absolutely scrumptious! (And you guessed it, here’s where I sprung for seconds.) With a pork texture and a fishy taste, it’s literally the best of both sand and surf. Only thing missing is a mayobased dipping sauce. Halo-halo
What & Where: Halo-halo, which translates to “mix-mix,” is a very popular dessert and true to its name: it’s an over-the-top dessert parfait of Jello, fruit (bananas and mango), cooked tapioca, ice milk, ube (purple yam jam) and . . . boiled beans?
The Ick Factor: None at all, until you hit the beans. Kidney and garbanzos lurk in the halo-halo’s deeper layers. Get ready.
Final Verdict: Adopt Joey Tribbiani’s food style — “What’s not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!”— and you’ll discover why halo-halo’s so well-loved. Double points for an esthetic that Anthony Bourdain called “oddly beautiful.” Balut egg
What & Where: A developing duck embryo, boiled and eaten from the shell. This one’s cooked atop peanuts and served from a vendor in a nighttime marketplace. Enjoy with a sprinkling of salt and a glass of beer.
The Ick Factor:10 out of10, so gross its consumption was a dare on Fear Factor, and so eggy in the 40 C heat that I took one whiff and threw up over a wall. True story.
Final Verdict: Everyone has their culinary line and maybe it’s good I finally found mine. That said, I’m told a perfect balut (at17 days old, the chick won’t have a beak, bones or feathers) is not just a delicious delicacy, but a potent aphrodisiac, too. Rosemary Counter is a Toronto-based travel writer. She’ll eat just about anything. This trip was supported by Intrepid Travel.