PJ Vogt

Have you, like, in the course of your life as a person who eats a lot of things, have you eaten things that felt to you instinctively, like, as... Like, you had a similar reaction as if you'd eaten human meat, where you just felt like, I shouldn't be eating this, or, like, my mind is telling my body not to do this?

That sound you're hearing in the background is of a precocious and slightly bored four-year-old figuring out that if you make funny sounds with your mouth, the microphone will pick them up.

Anyway, Balut.

So when you bite into it, is there like...

But when you were eating it, the FM radio station in your brain was just broadcasting like, no, no, stop, no.

It's also just funny because it's like if you were like, do you want to eat an egg?

I'd be like, sure.

If you were like, do you want to eat a duck?

I'd be like, absolutely.

If you were like, do you want to eat a baby duck?

I'd be like, I don't really have a strong opinion about that.

What are the reproductive policies?

It's really weird.

Like there's just a complicated amount of culture in that response that I don't know how to explain.

In America, there's a newer taboo which says that people shouldn't be disgusted when they encounter foods from other cultures, which is absolutely polite.

but also does not take into account that pretty much every culture has ideas about what's gross.

And for some of those cultures, what's gross is actually what we eat.

In India, where my editor Shruti grew up, a lot of people are born and raised vegetarian.

They've never eaten a bite of meat.

Can you imagine how gross meat would be if you'd never eaten it?