Adventure: Century eggs

The recent egg recall due to salmonella concerns reminds me of an egg adventure I had several years ago in Germany where I experienced hundred-year eggs, otherwise known as century eggs.

No, they are not actually 100 years old.

According to The New Food Lover’s Companion, duck or chicken eggs are treated with lime, ashes and salt and then shallowly buried for 100 days.

Although they are considered a great delicacy, it wasn’t to my taste.

The shell of the duck egg was a moldy green color and the smell matched.

As the egg was peeled, revealing that the part of a boiled egg that should be white was dark green to black, the “bad egg” odor intensified. The normally yellow yolk was swamp-water green.
It tasted just as bad as that description implies.

Since the Companion indicates the outer layer of the egg should be amber colored, not black, I am going to assume that the egg I tried might not have been a prime specimen.
Plus, it definitely is different than the normal Americanized foods we eat, and the dubiousness with which I approached the egg probably colored my perception.

With a couple of years spanning between then and now, I could even be persuaded to try century eggs again.

Maybe.