I ate 5 entire chickens last night. No lie. My dad's Laotian friend had their annual holiday party which means plenty of people and even more food. At the buffet table were plates of what appeared to be warm hard-boiled eggs. But I was wrong, very wrong. These eggs turned out to be a Laotian delicacy. It's a chicken egg that almost ready to hatch but not quite. The farmers snatch the eggs away from the chicken (so people like us can be feed) right before it form feathers, keep the eggs warm and serve it right then. To eat, you gently tap the top until a few cracks form, then pry open a hole with your fingers. Tip the egg to your mouth and drink up the sweet broth-like liquid. Break off some more of the shell to find the fetus all curled up. Appetizing eh?
I got really creeped out when I got to this point but convinced myself to close my eyes and take it in one bite. Good decision! It tasted remarkably like a fine cut of foie gras, buttery rich and smooth. The fetus was slightly warm and slippery on the tongue. It was so soft that it fell apart as I picked it up, leaving the head here and the body...er...somewhere else. I surprised I actually ate it now that I'm looking at that picture. Gross. But I would do it again in a heartbeat (even after eating five of them last night).
Serving as a "nest" for the fetus was a creamy (think high cholesterol) yellow disk, I suspect this would have been the egg yolk. This was more solid than the fetus and was delicious with some chili pepper sauce. Beneath the disk was a hard beige ball (egg white?). It was completely tasteless and impossible to chew, like attempting to eat a marble. The guy next to me said the white part was supposed to be good for your bones and people usually just swallow it, but I threw it out.
It was a very interesting experience to say the least. Many of the older generation at the party ate this delicacy with gusto, reminiscing about those "good old days" when they would have half a dozen at breakfast before setting off to work. At the other end of the room were the "young" people breaking the eggs open, dissecting the fetus and screaming "Yuck! I dare you to eat it!" "No way, I dare YOU!" So what could I do but sit with the older people and pretend as if I knew what the "good old days" were like while enjoying my eggs.