Century Eggs from a Sulfur Cave

Century eggs — preserved eggs with creamy green yolks and a flavor that divides humanity — are usually made in clay and rice hulls like civilized people. In Guizhou Province, there is a sulfur cave where locals have fermented eggs for generations using nothing but cave air, mineral runoff, and generational stubbornness. The smell can be detected from the parking lot. Carl detected it and left. I detected it and went deeper.

The cave keeper, a woman named Mei who had lungs of iron and zero small talk, led me past stalactites dripping with yellow mineral water. She said the eggs sit in bamboo baskets for ninety days minimum. I asked what happens if you leave them longer. She said you become either wise or hospitalized. She didn't specify which.

The tasting happened at the deepest chamber, by lantern light, on a rock that may or may not have been stable. Mei cracked an egg that had turned the color of a storm cloud. The white was translucent brown. The yolk was green-black and the consistency of soft tar. I ate it in one bite because hesitation is Carl's brand. It tasted like ammonia, earth, and every decision that led me here. I liked it.

Mei offered me a dozen to go. I declined — customs has opinions about sulfur-cured cave eggs. Carl eats egg-white omelets at brunch. I eat the darkness itself, fermented. On the way out, a tour group was entering with handkerchiefs over their faces. I walked past them without one. They thought I was insane. Mei thought I was a customer. Both were correct.