balate

Along the coasts of the large inhabited islands the Chinese travelled as traders or middlemen, at great personal risk of attack by individual robbers, bartering the goods of manufacturers for native produce, which chiefly consisted of sinamay cloth, shark-fin, balate (trepang), edible birds'-nests, gold in grain, and siguey-shells, for which there was a demand in Siam for use as money.

The Philippine Islands John Foreman

Besides the common articles of commerce, such as wax (of which the harvest is more abundant than in any other district), nests, fine shell, and balate, it has various fisheries for fine pearls of beautiful luster, some of them found at a depth of three or four brazas.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 1624 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. Edward Gaylord Bourne 1884

[74] The balate -- also known as "sea slug," "sea cucumber," "beche de mer," and commercially as "trepang" -- is a slug (_Holothuria edulis_) used as food in the Eastern Archipelago and in China, in which country it is regarded as a delicacy by the wealthy classes, and brings from seven to fifty cents a pound in the markets.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 1624 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. Edward Gaylord Bourne 1884

For the balate (although we do not eat it), is eaten in China by the princes and mandarins.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century Emma Helen Blair 1884

(p. 935) that in Manila the dried balate was usually worth thirty-five to forty (or even more) silver pesos a pico (or pecul; equivalent, in the Philippines, to 137.9 U.S. pounds).

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 1624 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. Edward Gaylord Bourne 1884