I am on my last flight before I reach my final destination. Beijing, China to Taipei, Taiwan. The flight attendant serving breakfast makes her way to my row. “Western or Chinese?” Obviously I reply indicating I want Chinese, after the Chinese lady sitting next to me orders the Western breakfast. I unwrap all my individual containers in hesitance, as does the lady sitting next to me.
I study all of the unfamiliar food in front of me. The main dish appears to be some sort of rice drowning in a thick water. I take a bite; it isn’t bad but very plain. Maybe I am supposed to add something to it? I scan my tray, cluelessly searching for the right ingredient. Two slices of fruit (one pineapple, one peach,) a roll, and two unknown packages covered in Chinese writing.
I pick up the one package which looked like it contained a chocolate egg, but felt slimy and squishy. I put that back on my tray; I don’t want to look like the dumb foreigner putting the wrong ingredient in my rice mush. Imagine watching someone put a Kit-Kat in their mashed potatoes- not quite the look I was going for. I pick up the other mysterious package. This one is red and I cannot see inside of it. As I open it, this awful stench emits. What looks like a tentacle starts to slide out. Oh, no no no!! That little guy is just gonna have to stay in the package.
I look to the lady next to me, barely picking at her glorious eggs and croissant. I look to the man on the other side of her, a fellow blonde foreigner who also ordered the Chinese breakfast. I noticed he has the same Taiwan guide book as me, tucked in the pocket of the seat in front of him. He probably read up on this kind of stuff and knows exactly what to do. He plops the “chocolate egg” in his rice mush.
I play cool and do the same. The smell from the egg is just as bad as the tentacle package. I cut it in half. This is definitely some sort of hardboiled egg from an animal, and far from chocolate. What animal produces eggs that look like chocolate is beyond me, but I have never seen anything like it.
I start to grin as I think about the Reeses egg waiting for me in my backpack. This egg could possibly be a duck egg, that is my best guess. You’d think I would be able to recognize a duck egg, considering my father runs a waterfowl company, but I guess not. So I bravely cut off a piece of this emu/ ostrich/ pterodactyl (whatever you will) egg and heaping scoop of the rice mush.
Not bad… at first. Suddenly, I get an overwhelming taste of the yolk. More soggy rice!! More soggy rice!! Shit, I can still taste it so strongly. I shove the roll into my mouth, like a barbarian. What do you know?
Another surprise! Chocolate filling. That roll absolutely did the trick, but damnit, I wanted to like that stupid egg. I go for another bite, hoping the first reaction was just a result of shock. Negative, 100% negative on the second try. I look up at the lady sitting next to me, she hates her food too. Those poor, neglected chicken eggs on her plate that she won’t eat…
I see her eye-balling my mystery egg. I wanna ask her to trade, certain the results would favor the both of us, but I refrain. The other foreign dude seemed to love his egg. Hmm, I will try again when I know what animal it came from and receive it from a kitchen that is not a couple thousand feet up in the sky.
For now, I’ll stick to my Reeses egg.