Is eating a “100 years old egg” in Berlin a crime?

Today I am twenty years old. Each day I have a lunch and a dinner like most of us have in our European countries. Every month I will eat fifty-six meals. During a year, my stomach and intestines will digest almost 2968 lunches and dinners. That is a lot, I know. But most of the time we don’t raise any concerns on what we eat. We eat because we have to eat. It’s cultural.  In that sense “eating” becomes just something we do daily to satisfy one of our primary need. And it is also something we do because our parents taught us to do so when we were young.  That is all. However, sometimes we put a special attention to what we are eating because we are not at home, we are traveling, we are surrounded with our bosses or our friends and the context in which we have this meal is finally not so ordinary. As I deeply think that the act of eating is totally inherent to our culture, I will try to focused myself on the link that emerged from both notions.

Let’s face it: With the ESN Network (the association made for Erasmus people) I travelled to Berlin to discover the city but also to visit a couple of friends, who study there.  On an evening, we decided with my Chinese friend to eat in one of the most renowned Chinese restaurants we can find in the city. I thought at the beginning that it was really funny and strange not to eat something “typical” from Berlin such as a “Currywurst” because for me the best way to discover a culture is to discover the food that is eaten in the country. I have always thought that the act of “eating like locals” plays a big role in the cultural process you are enrolled in when you are abroad.   So, we went finally to that Chinese restaurant. I have to admit that I was full of expectations to discover new meals I heard so many times about but I still didn’t taste. When I received the menu card I couldn’t help thinking how much some Chinese meals can be weird. For a low price you can eat grilled bees and broiled spiders, and even duck’s heads. My friend ordered grilled bees. I was really reluctant to eat the same meal as her that is why I finally opted for an egg salad with rise, jellyfish, and cucumber. These eggs are special ones and are named “100 years old eggs”.  When the meal came I was far from making my mouth water! I don’t know why I had such a reaction. Was it due to my own European culture? Why eating snails is something normal and common for me? And why was I particularly reluctant to eat the meal in front of me?

As the meal had just been grilled, it was still possible to hear a little crackling on the plate. Eggs had a really bad consistent and looked horrible. If we grabbed them and feel the cold in our hand we could argue despite of their brown color that there were normal eggs.  There was no visual difference but when I broke the shell that was another deal!  Far from an ambrosia formerly dedicated to kings, they seemed not appealing at all with their brown-dark color and their rotten eggs smell. Just looking at them felt me nauseous! I was wondering how it was possible to eat them with relish or even to take a tentative mouthful of them. Expert of fruits would argue that they looked like a kiwi or an avocado fruit because the egg yolk was not yellow anymore but grey and the egg white became green. Scientists would say that they were like mineral stones we can buy as a memory in souvenir shops. It’s just a question of point of view! They were dressed on a small plate and were encompassed by scrumptious pieces of cucumber. The whole dish was wrapped with some grains of rice and some flesh of jellyfishes. Everything was carefully minced and put on a spicy red sauce. The whole meal looked like an abstract painting from Kandinsky! It appeared at first very delectable with its many colors and forms but it was impossible to define exactly the real taste it would have once in mouth.

I have to admit that it was a real challenge for me to finish this dish but if you don’t eat everything on your plate it is seen as a symbol of disrespect for your guests and for the restaurant. It is maybe because almost every meal has a symbolic value in China. Indeed, there are linked with luck, fortune, unity, and commemoration. Eating may also bring blessings. I learnt for example that the yellow-peach symbolizes sincerity, and eggs fertility. So, food also appears really closed to the religion but also closed to our own culture. The fact that I was reluctant to eat this egg clearly shows how important the primary socialization process is. If someone tells you, when you are 5, that you do not eat such or such meal for such or such reason, you will memorize it and keep it into you brain, into your “habitus” (Pierre Bourdieu). In this way it becomes something cultural and trying to change that is really hard. But, if the culture can bring people together, I can’t help thinking that food can do more than that: “it brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s truly love” dixit Giada de Laurentiis.