Chinese Century Eggs

CENTURY EGGS

Century eggs are made by preserving duck eggs in different mixtures containing ingredients such as clay, ash, salt, rice and lime, and left to cure for typically three months. 

Century eggs are also known as Thousand Year Eggs, Hundred Year Eggs, or just Preserved Duck Eggs. Contrary to urban legend horse urine, or urine from any other animal is not used in the process of preserving the eggs. This most legend most likely stems from the eggs sometimes smelling like ammonia or sulfur. 

Century eggs are a delicacy hailing from Hunan China, and date back to the Ming Dynasty. They were supposedly discovered by a man who found them preserved in a pool of slaked lime. Upon eating them, he found that they didn't taste half bad and decided to modify the ingredients and preserve more.

The yolk of a century egg ranges from a pasty green to black color, with an extremely creamy taste, and the white of the egg is a gel like brown color, tasting mostly just like a regular hard boiled egg. While they can be eaten alone, Century Eggs are usually a side dish or added to different porridges. 

As for the medical benefits of Century Eggs, there is hardly any. There is little information on the benefits and risks of eating Century Eggs. However it is known that one egg has an estimated eight grams of protein, and also that they should not be eaten on a regular basis. 

Note: It seems that the lack of nutritional information is due to that fact that Asian's (at least in my experience) pay less attention to the nutritional content of their food. Why would they? Other than foreign foods, and junk food, the majority of their food is quite healthy. And so is their lifestyle/eating habits. I know this is changing somewhat, but in comparison to America, where we have horrible food, and are obsessed with weight and health, Asia doesn't seem so extreme. 

I just happen to have a work's cited! So here you go: 

Works Cited

Calories in a Century Egg. My Fitness Pal. 

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/generic-century-egg-28910683

Century Eggs. Asian Pantry.

http://pantry.feastasia.com/century-eggs-preserved-duck-eggs/

Century Eggs. Philosophically Disturbed. 

http://philosophicallydisturbed.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/century-eggs/

Century or Thousand Year old Eggs. The Chinese Soup Lady 

http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/century-or-thousand-year-old-egg/

Century Eggs. Kok Robin. 

http://kokrobin.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/century-eggs/

Preserved Duck Egg. Serious Eats. 

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/07/seriously-asian-preserved-duck-egg.html

The Story of Mutnik

    The days of wandering the streets of Russia alone, had finally come to an end. Now she finally had a home. Well, not quite, it was more like being moved from one uncomfortable environment to another. Only this one was more unpredictable, and most definitely unexplainable.
    In the beginning, fear was mingled with excitement. She was finally clean, warm, and well fed. There were two others like her. The humans called them Albina, and Mushka. They called her Laika. Because she was a barker, they said.
    In the beginning she had a nice kennel. Slowly, however, her kennel became smaller and smaller. For days, at least 20, she stayed in one place. After a while she stopped urinating, and began to grow thin, sick and weak. But, then the humans decided that was a bad idea. Instead they began simulations. She was put into a small padded cubical that was very shaky and very loud. It was scary, but eventually she began to get use to it.
    They also took away her normal food. They began feeding her a strange gel. They said it was highly nutritious and would prepare her for the food she would eat on the voyage.
    Then one day one of the humans took Laika home to play with his children. They said it was because he felt sorry for her, and thought she would like it.
    The next day she was cleaned really nice and then put into another cubicle. But this time there were more people, lots of lights, and it was very exciting. The humans said that she was being put into a spacecraft called Sputnik 2, and that the American's had a different name for her. It was Mutnik.
    The Voyage didn't last long. Not for Laika. Even though she was the first animal to orbit the world, and even though there was now proof that humans could indeed survive in space, it was a horrible experience. At first she was scared, her heart was beating out of control, but then, she calmed down and decided to eat her food. But, a few hours into her voyage things began to change. The human's had failed to install an adequate cooling system and the temperature was rising.
    At approximately 6 hours of flight, the humans down on earth had no further signs of life from Sputnik 2.
    In the fight to be the first country to have a life form orbit earth, the Russians had too little time and had failed to make Sputnik correctly.
    Five months later Sputnik, and what was left of Laika, disintegrated as they re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
    Today, in Star City Russia, there is a memorial erected to Liaka: the first being to orbit the earth, and the first to die in space.

By the way, I want to dedicate this post to Monica Swartz, since she is the one who suggested I present on Mutnik. Thanks a ton!!!

SAMURAI History (short and concise)

Last Friday I gave my first presentation at my job at Trivium, as an AfterSchool Assistant. The kids are between the ages of 5 and 10, so I tried to make it as simple and interesting as possible. Usually we start out with about 25 kids and then it dwindles down as they get picked p, so about the time I gave my presentation, there were maybe 15 kids, which is just perfect. 
So, this is basically what I taught, it is REALLY simple. There are NO names of any historical figures (who's going to remember them anyways?- or even be able to pronounce them?), only a few terms, and very few dates. But, if you want to know the super-duper simple history of Samurai I guess this is it:

 ~ Samurai are basically warriors that in the past controlled Japan~

SAMURAI HISTORY 

In feudal Japan the social hierarchy went like this

1.) Emperor

2.) Land owners

3.) Peasants.

(The date is around 800 A.D.)

The government gave the landowners permission to keep the peace. (For example: Stop uprisings) So they employed mounted warriors who developed into the Samurai. 

Eventually the sons of the landowners started becoming samurai, they rode horses, wore armor and used a bow and sword. 

In the beginning you could be born a peasant and then move your way up and become a samurai, but eventually if you weren't born into the samurai "class" you could never become one.

 

So even if you did really great things in the army you couldn't become a Samurai. Eventually it became the custom that before two Samurai would fight each other they would both recite a LONG list of their lineage to prove that they were REALLY a samurai. 

Eventually only Samurai could even have weapons. (1500's)

 

Also, the Samurai became so powerful that they emperor of Japan didn't have any control. He was only a symbol. He was really rich and the Samurai still protected him, and they told everyone that he was a god. But, the Samurai became the rulers of Japan. They fought a lot to be the top Samurai. 

 

Eventually, because of all the fighting there were lots of Samurai that got defeated and didn't have anywhere to go. Some of them killed themselves (committed suicide) but others decided to just wander Japan. They were called Ronin. (1600's). They became very independent and just did whatever they wanted. A lot of Books and movies are made about this time in Japan, because it was very exciting. The Ronin would travel around and you could hire them to fight for you, be bodyguards,  others taught martial arts, and a lot of them went around and found other Ronin to dual with. 

 

But then in 1639, the highest Samurai (called a Shogun) decided to close the whole country off from the rest of the world. There were also lots of laws passed, so that the Samurai couldn't fight each other with weapons. So instead they just did martial arts and things like flower arranging and tea ceremony. 

Finally in 1877 two of the most powerful Samurai had a huge battle and the one that won, he made the Emperor of Japan the ruler again, so he had power over Japan. About this time, the last of the Samurai died out. 

ABOUT SAMURAI

Armor: They often had symbols on their armor so that everyone could recognize what family they came from. One Samurai family painted their whole army of foot soilder and samurai a really bright red. They like to wear really big helmets so that they looked taller, usually about two feet taller. 

Weapons:

Sword: The Japanese Sword is the strongest sword in the world. At the same time as the Samurai, Knights in Europe were using sword that broke all the time. They were very brittle, but the Japanese sword was strong and flexible. Also, Samurai didn't carry shields so when they fought it was with two hands, and looked really neat. 

Weapons: 

Tanto: A small sword, like a dagger. When you put it in its sheath it looked like a folded up fan. Women, monks, and retired Samurai often carried these. 

They also had Fans that were made of metal and could be used like a weapon. 

Girls would Wear metal hair pins that were little mini weapons. 

(There were LOTS more weapons)

LIFESTYLE:

Samurai were always training to fight. At the age of three little boys would start learning to fight with wooden swords, and at 5 they were given their first real sword so that they could defend themselves. At ages 13 and 16 they went through some ceremonies and then got new swords, at sixteen they got the Katana, the Samurai Sword. 

Girls did training too. They had to learn Martial Arts. Often when her husband went off to battle, the wife was left running the castle and had to be able to defend herself.

Nightingale Floors. 

Developed by a Shogun, a REALLY powerful Samurai. He had lots of enemies and was scared that they would send ninja to try and sneak into his castle and kill him. Ninja's are really good at sneaking around and being quiet, so he made a floor that squeaked no matter where you stepped on it. It sounded like little birds chirping. There are three castles left with this floor in Japan today. I actually went to one called Niji-jo in Kyoto. 

In Japan there was a annual parade in Kyoto were civilians dress up in Traditional outfits. I saw a lot of Samurai. ;)