This year I will serve a boiled fetus for Christmas dinner. That’s right – a boiled fetus. Turkey? B-o-r-i-n-g. Roast goose? Tiny Tim can keep it. Eggnog, fruitcake, roasted chestnuts: it’s all crap really. This year I intend to sit down with my loved ones - well, my family actually - and slurp up a fertilized embryo. It will be the beginning of a tradition I hope.

Every family should have its Christmas traditions. Growing up, mine mostly consisted of bickering and ugly recriminations. And as the glorious day approached I developed an increasingly agitated and morbid frame of mind. The sight of so many people being happy – or pretending to be happy – disturbed and confused me.

Perhaps that is why balut appeals to me as a Yuletide meal for my own family. Balut, a Philippine delicacy, is fertilized duck egg. Gastronomically, balut is a journey to the gates of Hell. It is the singularly most terrifying food available in Canada, beyond even head cheese or a Swanson Hungry Man Dinner.

Soon Lee is a cheerful, sprawling grocery store whose stock reflects Toronto’s multicultural composition: banana leaves, jute leaves, durian and sweet corn popsicles from Malaysia. The huge meat counter offers fresh goat meat and oxtail for the West-Indian community. Soon Lee has a particularly strong selection of Philippine foods including longganisa, a pork sausage and tocino, marinated salt pork.

However, my enquiries about balut are met with some incredulity, even shock. “Did someone tell you to eat this?” the clerk asks, as if I were the victim of a malicious practical joke. ”Do you know what this is?” I assure him that I most certainly do. I am ready to satiate my unholy hunger; I am ready be initiated into the balut circle of the damned. I purchase a half dozen. I am ready for Christmas. I’m sure they’ll be delicious.

They look fairly innocuous on the kitchen counter, a little larger than a chicken eggs with a slight grayish tinge, pretty you could say, like antique porcelain. I will cook them in the ungodly hours of the night. This will be a practice run for my Christmas dinner. I heat a pot of water on the stove. Their preparation, I am told, is quite simple: boil for twenty minutes and serve with salt, vinegar or pepper sauce.

A sense of foreboding overcomes me. I am a character in a low-budget horror movie (the eggs are 99 cents each.) I know something horrible is concealed beneath the attractive exterior; but I’m frightened all the same. Apparently, the ideal time for the egg to incubate is 17 days. After that the fetus is killed by rapid boiling. Leave it any longer and you’ll be eating feather and beaks.

I wonder if my eggs originated from a reputable source. I have a sickening fear that a half-formed bird will emerge from my egg, squawking for its mother. My heart palpitates and I and reconsider this whole thing. Maybe I should try to make my own marzipan instead.

But why the repugnance, I think, at eating embryonic flesh? We eat all manner of disgusting things. Disgusting is a matter of custom and perspective. How many pig rectums does the average hot dog contain? Is it anymore immoral to eat balut than to eat veal? The Lord has given us dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth and we really take advantage. Did that chop I bought at Loblaws fall off a tree? Did it wash up on the shore? No. It was sawed off some innocent, gambolling lamb that an ex-convict smacked over the head with a sledge hammer.

The twenty minutes are up. I am curious, ashamed and little peckish actually. The proper way to eat a balut egg is to cut an opening in the top, suck out the” broth” and then peel the shell and eat the embryo. I tap it lightly with a knife. The smell is not unpleasant. No shrieking creature leaps out to drag me into the underworld.

My lips touch the fissure in the egg and I draw out some of the liquid. Is this what damnation tastes like - a bland duck broth? Now for the meat of the matter – the embryo. I tear apart the shell, blindly; my eyes are closed. Then I open them.

Nothing - no book, no movie, no absinthe-induced hallucination - could have prepared me for the monstrous abortion that sits on my plate. Is this to be my “Christmas bird?” Where’s the drumstick? Where’s the wishbone? Where’s the toilet? I think I’m going to be ill.

I return to confront the balut again, wearing a dust mask and holding a crucifix. I dump hot sauce over the slimy atrocity. I really want to hurl it back into the gaping maw of hell, not eat it. Still, this is a trial run for Christmas and I do so want Christmas to be perfect. I remember that balut is also traditionally eaten with a shot of booze. I have some absinthe on hand. Hallucinations would be a welcome respite now.

I can report that the flavour is quite mild, insipid even, like a hard boiled egg with duck flavouring. My stomach remains peaceable . In the end, balut seems more insipid than horrific, no more evil tasting than mince meat pie. And if my Christmas dinner turns out to be more insipid than horrific, I’ll be a happy man.