Mutant Eggs

It’s funny the little things you obsess about when you’re living in a foreign country. For us it’s the eggs. We eat them a lot here – standard breakfast at any hotel is an omlette (nice and greasy, kind of like a fried scrambled egg) with toast, and of course chips mai. We thought it was a little odd when we first got here that they only made egg white omlettes. “How very health-conscious of them” we thought, although we really thought there might be some cultural taboo against eating the yolk here or some such thing.

Then one day we got a hard boiled egg. Cut it open, and, low and behold, the yolk was white! Now this we found fascinating. First thought – albino chickens? No, we’ve seen hundreds of chickens (they are only outnumbered by goats walking around in the street), and they look normal enough, maybe just a little smaller and not as robust as their California cousins (I guess having chickens at home really does pay off). So why on earth are the yolks white? Everyday, when I have my fried egg, I think about it and shake my head. It doesn’t make any sense.

Thankfully, the answer has come. My friend Sabrina has informed me that the chickens are not getting enough keratin in their food to make the yolks yellow. So they aren’t some mutant strain of chicken, they’re just malnourished! Which I can see, given the variety of food here – I’m feeling a little white myself (pun intended).