Balut In Singapore?

Posted by vickoo under Food
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Victor Koo blogs about an unusual hawker food sold in Singapore in the 1960s which was somewhat similar to the modern-day balut. If you are not faint-hearted, read on to find out more.

Chun See’s article about itinerant food vendors of yesteryears reminds me of a roadside hawker who sold a rather unusual dish in Singapore in the 1960s.

The closest modern-day food I could think of is the balut, a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It may sound gross to you but it is considered a delicacy in Asia especially in the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

The version sold in Singapore in the 1960s was cooked differently. It was called gai chai dan in Cantonese (鸡仔蛋) meaning literally “foetal chicken egg”. The embryonic egg was not cooked in its shell. Instead, the contents were cooked in soup contained in an enamelled metal basin. I don’t know what else went into the soup but having tried it once or twice before, I remember that it smelled strongly of ginger and actually quite tasty. Your order would probably include a whole chick carcass (with newly-formed feathers, beak and all) and some yellow stuff that looked like poached egg, probably the chick’s “leftover dinner”. :p

The stall was located at the same spot in Queen Street every night, i.e. it did not move from place to place. It would be business as usual when there was no rain. Customers sat around the stall on small 8-inch-tall wooden stools and devour their gai chai dan in the dim flickering light provided by a Milo can contraption. (When you are eating such a dish, perhaps it is better that you couldn’t see so clearly.)

Photo by courtesy of National Archives of Singapore, showing a roadside hawker and customers sitting on little wooden stools

Fortunately for some, this dish somehow didn’t catch on in Singapore. Otherwise, today it could have been more common than chicken rice or chilli crab.

Tags: Strange foods, Balut, foetal chicken egg

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