TB says to "eat local." So far, I have been lucky on that score, except for some bad butter in Germany. Not the place you would expect to find trouble. In Taiwan, there used to be women who sold tea-boiled eggs from buckets over a charcoal grill on street corners. I havent been to Taiwan in years, so the practice may no longer exist. However, these hard-boiled eggs were delicious. The tea stains them brown, and the buckets dont look too sanitary, but no problems occured. One kind of Chinese delicacy I dont like, is Thousand Year Eggs. These eggs have been cured in a kind of ash-looking coating. They are smelly, like ripe cheese. I will have to ask my husband what the coating is made of. The inside is green! The true Green Eggs, without the ham.

Your description of the Thousand Year Egg reminded me of Bourdain's experience balut [soft-boiled fetal duck in shell, I think]. Tony ate it, but said later he probably wouldn't be adding it to the breakfast menu anytime soon. The name Thousand Year Egg does make a muse wonder how long exactly does it take to prepare? It doesn't exactly sound like a rushed process if the chef is late to work. The mind reels then falls off the shelf at the visual of little eggs brought out of the cellar wrapped in cheesecloth -- to distinguish them of course from the objects found nearby including a dinosaur egg, wooly mammoth and game show host Bob Barker...

Thousand Year Eggs are prepared by covering eggs in pine ash and letting them cure for "a long time," according to my husband. He says when little black dots appear on the shell, the eggs are ripe. On the outside, they are gray. On the inside, they are green. He loves them. To each his own. He also loves Sea Cucumber and Jellyfish. He says most Chinese like a gelatinous texture. My son-in-law once terrorized my daughter and me by eating baby squids and letting the tentacles protrude from his lips. I remain traumatized by the event, but love him anyway.

hmm the egg that you mentioned which cured by ash and stuff is more like duck egg from chinese food. some called it pitan if im not wrong and it taste salty and yes the egg is green. is this the same egg ?

Yes, I think that is probably the same kind of egg. Do you like them?

I don't really like it when you served it like a boiling-eggs.too salty and the egg yolk is too strong for my taste. however, I love them on pouridge, I think it taste best when it mix with other stuff

Just our of curiosity, you mentioned that your husband is Chinese but you didnt say what race or ethinicity you belong to? I am just wondering cos I am Chinese and my husband is Caucasian (American) and we have similar problems just in reverse haaha! Some of teh food I love, he doesnt like. He is a good sport most of the time and he donest stop me from eating them but he has made it clear that he doesnt care for some of them. He has a probelm with food that is black..do you have that same problem? I personally dislike Thousand year eggs but I do love seaweed and Zhi Chai (purple veggie which is made from seaweed) and he also dislike Tong fun (clear mugbean noodles or chelophane noodles).