the Butot adventure

There are plenty of things I do not eat especially those under the ‘exotic’ or ‘out of the ordinary category’ for the obvious reasons.

I also do not eat lamb or ducks. I just don’t. I also prefer seafood over meat.

Anyway, when people tell me Butot taste really good, I’ll just take their word for it. I have no whatsoever desire to try it because that thing wiggles. It’s chubby and it wiggles. Surely, anything that was created chubby and wiggly is not meant for human consumption.

During the CNY lunch, my youngest sister mentioned that she would like to try Butot and my dear cousin actually went to look for it at the Donggongon Tamu. He came over the next night, with a plastic bag on his hand.

The whole house was chaotic when he took the Butot out and one of my brothers went around the house chasing my younger cousins. After everyone settled down, my cousin and brother went inside to fry the Butot.

All I heard were the kids screaming and the thing went into the frying pan.

The boys came out and showed me a shrunk Butot. My sisters took one each, so did my brothers. Unconsciously I took one. Now, as the eldest cousins, I need to show a good example to the younger ones no? Since I already took it, I cannot put it back because this is what I preached to Ekiel every day. Once you’ve touched the food or put it on your plate, you better finish it.

The cooked Butot still look like a Butot and with its transparent textured skin you could see the “meat” inside.

Everyone said it tasted good. So okay, I tried to put it in my mouth, but as I hold that thing closer, my head keeps screaming, it’s a Butot.

And my siblings doing the wiggly dance in front of me are not helping.

I told myself, how bad can it be right? So in one no-so-brave attempt, I put the whole thing in my mouth. It smelled like fried chicken but what betrayed me was the textured skin. And the wiggly dance. So I forced myself to bite it quickly and swallow it.

Now, the texture and the mental image aside, it does taste okay. The skin was crunchy like fried chicken skin and though the “meat” was a little gooey, it tasted like half-cooked prawn or crab meat.

And no, no second serving for me.
Thank you very much.

One was enough and now I could proudly said, ‘I ate Butot’.