Throwback Thursday: Unsafe Diets and an Eggregious Use of Puns
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It's weird, it's wonderful, it's a deep-dive into 11 years of blog archives. It's time for Throwback Thursday...
What's the best thing about holidays? The special foods that come with them, of course! Easter is no exception, and for those of us spending that holiday in China, there is also no shortage of egg-cellent inspiration.
Back in 2012, we wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly of eggs (thebeijinger.com/blog/2012/04/08/bad-eggs-good-eggs). At the time, a Chinese man had just made headlines after being diagnosed with coronary heart disease due to his ten-eggs-per-day-for-five-years diet. While we admired his perseverance, ten of anything daily is probably not a good idea.
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The story above should not come as a great surprise, since Chinese love their eggs in all shapes and forms. With Easter impatiently peeking around the corner, we look at some of our favorite (or simply bizarre) Chinese dishes made with eggs. This eggs-traordinary list will make you foreigners look beyond the boiled eggs served at Easter brunch back home (aren't all these puns funny enough to crack you up? What's the matter, can't take a yolk...?). Ok, ok, we'll stop.
Shouzhuabing
A breakfast street food and a cousin of the famous jianbing, 手抓饼 shǒuzhuābǐng (or "hand-grabbed pancake" ... now you see why we choose not to translate it) is a carby wonder. Lettuce, fried egg, spicy sauce, and other additions of your choice are wrapped in a chewy, thick, fried pancake. For a full experience, eat it while walking to work, just like the locals do.
Tea Eggs
Closer to the hard-boiled Easter eggs that so many foreigners are familiar with, albeit steeped in tea, tea eggs have a light brown color and deep flavor. Tea eggs are perfect with breakfast dishes or cold noodles with sesame paste in the summer.
Egg and Tomato
As every vegetarian in China will confirm, egg and tomato is likely the only non-meat dish on the menu at your average Lanzhou lamian joint (or a Shanxi cut noodle restaurant for that matter). That's fine for us, because it's delicious! Scramble some egg, add diced tomato, simmer a little, et voilà, you are a master of Chinese cuisine!
Egg Drop Soup
A mainstay at Chinese restaurants around the world, this thick, starchy soup with stringy, gravity-defying egg is served at all times of the day. To complete the experience, make sure to compete with the neighboring tables to see who'll be crowned the loudest slurper in the restaurant.
Century Eggs
A great Chinese delicacy to scare away enemies or test true love, century eggs take five months to prepare, which is indeed a 1,000 years in an egg's lifetime.
According to the SCMP (scmp.com), Italian authorities recently confiscated around 800 packages of various eggs from China, century eggs amongst them, deeming the latter "unfit for human consumption." While daunting at first sight, century eggs are often manageable to the uninitiated if eaten with plenty of vinegar and sprinkling of fresh ginger. Add a bottle of baijiu and you'll be an OG Beijinger in no time.
Boy Eggs
According to another throwback from 2011 (thebeijinger.com/blog/2011/03/16/eggciting-eats), these eggs are boiled in the urine of young boys, which is reportedly often collected at schools, imbuing the final product with a very specific, well, flavor. We'll leave these to try for yourself.
Whether your Easter brunch this year consists of hand-painted egg masterpieces, eggs soaked in little boys' piss, or simply piled up in a shouzhuabing – or no eggs at all should you be of the vegan persuasion – we wish you a great holiday weekend!
Still hungry? Feast your bellies on the best Easter brunches in Beijing.
Images: Table for Two (tablefortwoblog.com), finedininglovers.com, Opentour.com.hk, shewearsmanyhats.com, cooking.NYTimes.com
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