Just over a month ago, I somehow got roped into officiating over the eating of some fertilised duck eggs by a few of the cohort of Melbourne food bloggers. It happened on Sunday. I failed at being any sort of official or even offering an authoritative view on the best way to approach eating an oft-maligned egg. I’d only ever eaten it on a handful of occasions so I’m probably not even the best judge as to what defines the perfect egg.

If you write about food, you're generally more open than most to new food experiences as long as they fit within whichever food ethic that you follow. Fertilised duck eggs (balut in the Philippines, trung vit lon in Vietnam  and poeung tea koun in Cambodia) tend to fall at either the weird or macho ends of the spectrum for Western food writers; the palates embodied by Andrew Zimmern at the former and Anthony Bourdain at the latter.

For most of Asia, they’re just another prosaic choice of egg; an ordinary roadside street snack eaten by millions. However, if you don’t grow up in a culture that likes gelatinous and meaty foods or eating certain foods for their complex textures then the idea of them seems anathema to good eating. If you don’t like the idea of eating food that is still connected to its own head, you won’t like eating a semi-formed foetal head regardless of how delicious it tastes.

Firstly, it is much easier than I expected to find the eggs in Melbourne which is another (semiformed) feather in the Melbourne’s food cred cap. Practically every Vietnamese grocer in the city seems to stock them which seems to suggest they’re popular. @cloudcontrol gathered from the suburb of Richmond, Kat from Springvale and myself from Footscray.

Secondly, not all eggs are equal. My initial impression of the fertilised eggs was that there would be a single farm supplying the whole of Melbourne and as a consequence, little variation between the different stores. I was wrong.

The fresher eggs (from Springvale) were more gelatinous and topped with a rich egg-yolk and duck stock when cooked. The older eggs (lamentably, the ones that I bought) were chewier and dry, still with plenty of duck flavour but missing the real complexity.

If you’re ever keen to attempt this at home.

How to cook a fertilised duck egg:

Place the eggs in a pot of cold water then heat until boiling. Boil for 15 minutes.

How to eat a fertilised duck egg:

From our small sample of food bloggers, two ways to approach the egg emerged.

1. Cambodia/South Vietnam
Tap the air pocket in the blunt end of the egg with your spoon and break off a cap of egg shell large enough to get your spoon into the egg. Season with salt, pepper and Vietnamese mint and eat; progressively seasoning the egg as you work your way towards the bottom of the shell.

2. North Vietnam
Peel the egg entirely into a bowl, and eat with finely shredded ginger, Vietnamese mint, salt and pepper to taste.