One of the most enjoyable parts of being here in Taiwan is getting to know the local culture and people. We try to have our english students over for dinner to our house. That is actually a little strange here in Taiwan. Most people will go out for dinner with others, not have them over to their house. I’m not quite sure why, but it is true. Anyways, the other night we had a big dinner party with our students. We cooked them some different western style dishes and some of them brought Taiwanese style dishes. Once again we were treated to an exciting new dish. Well, exciting might not be the best word for it, but it definitely was adventurous.
Let me introduce you to the century egg: It is a chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw for several weeks to several months. After the processing is complete, the yolk becomes a dark green, cream-like substance with a strong odor of sulfur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, transparent jelly with little flavour or taste. The transforming agent in the century egg is its alkaline material, which gradually raises the PH level of an egg from around 9 to 12 or more.
We have posted some pictures and a short video of Ben’s attempt to eat these yummy eggs (sorry not at all edited- no time this week). Actually the egg really wasn’t that bad. The Taiwanese serve it on top of a block of tofu and cover it with a thick soy sauce, green onions and shaved dried fish. Would we eat it again? Not by choice, but we survived it :)
Teaching Adventures 