How Do You Like Your Eggs ---- December 13, 2017

For most of my life, I thought that rotten eggs were only good for throwing at Politicians. That idea changed greatly two weeks ago, while I was in Bangkok. My Thai family friends and I were back in the big city, and I was assisting them to take some items to their home. They lived about ten minutes from  my apartment, by Skytrain, the Bangkok elevated high speed rail system. When we entered their home, one could smell the Sulphur-like aroma of rotten eggs. They went to a shelf, and retrieved a flat of about two dozen eggs. (These were not in the refrigerator). One said, "Oh, good, the eggs are ready"..... I had offered to take the eggs outside to the garbage....When I asked how long the eggs were on the shelf, I was informed that they were there since early August!....but, its ok Don, we use them now. A large electric Wok of water was started and when the water boiled, the eggs were put in it for about five minutes. Once boiled, there was no smell from the eggs. One member of the family ate one egg, pronounced it to be delicious, and ok to use. They were then taken to their places of work to share with the staff, a prized delicacy.

One sees these eggs being sold on the streets, and sometimes, as happened with me, these sellers come into restaurants and offer the eggs to customers as they wait for their orders. HOWEVER, the eggs offered this way often have an added touch. The chick is inside, well cooked. Seriously, this is true. A chicken egg takes about 21 days to hatch, while duck and geese eggs take 28 days on average. Asian folks use large incubators and set hundreds of eggs to the process; about one to two days before the scheduled hatch dates, the incubators are shut off, and all the eggs are put into boiling water where they stay for 30 minutes. Yummy!!! they say. NO I HAVE NOT, AND WILL NOT TRY THEM.  I have seen these in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. About a year ago, I was sitting in the Tokyo airport between flights, and started chatting with a lady from Vietnam, on her way to California. After about half hour, she offered to share her lunch with me....but  as it was sight unseen, I declined to do so, with thanks. She opened her bag and came out with several eggs, of which I still declined to take one. As she cracked the egg open...I saw it was full of feathers, etc, and I suddenly decided to go for a walk. They all say that it is good for your health. I will always just be the gracious guest and let someone else enjoy the offering.