Rapper Cardi B set out to test her foodie limits and had instant regret. She recently shared a TikTok video of herself trying balut, a fertilised duck egg dish popular in the Philippines. The rapper, who has ventured in the food space with her spiked whipped cream brand Whipshots, started her food tasting video as she paid an homage to TikTok’s food critic Keith Lee, reports People magazine.
“I’ve been seeing this for a long time, it’s called balut. I got it, let’s try it and rate it from 1-10,” she said, copying Lee’s well-known TikTok intro. “This egg is huge! Like this egg is giving two yolks.”
However, before she took a bite, she popped pills including Pepto Bismol to “protect the stomach.”
“I have a very sensitive stomach,” she said, quoted by People. “Now, let’s start it off.”
“If you’re a real Bardigang, you know that I can eat anything with lemon and salt, so I got lemon and salt and pepper,” she said, showing off her bowl of seasoning ready to sprinkle on the egg. “Let’s try it!”
Balut is prepared by taking a fertilised egg, usually duck or sometimes chicken, allowing the egg to develop for anywhere from 16 to 20 days, and boiling it with the meat inside. A broth that’s said to have a strong flavour is produced, along with a tender duck meat (that sometimes comes with feathers and a beak if it’s been incubated for long enough).
As per People, it was previously used on James Corden’s ‘Spill Your Guts’ segment but was removed after claims that the bit encourages racism against Asians. Cardi continued her video by pouring her lemon mixture into the open egg and took a sip of the broth, before immediately gagging.
“No. You know, I’m just gonna hold my nose and I’m gonna just drink,” she said as she prepared herself to dig in even more.
Cracking open the entire egg and pulling out the duck meat, Cardi immediately took a bite — before spitting it out and running out of frame. “No. I don’t like it,” she said. “… It’s very meaty. It literally tastes to me like an uncooked chicken.”