Let’s Run That by the P.R. Dept First

I ate horse urine eggs for lunch last weekend at a restaurant. They weren’t really what I thought I had ordered. Jip cracked up when she heard about it.

The name comes from an old wives’ tale about how pickled eggs are prepared. They are indeed preserved in a special brine, which admittedly gives the finished delicacy a slight ammonia odor. But horses and urine have nothing to do with the process. You’d think some marketer would’ve come up with a jazzier label by now.

The story of how they ended up on my plate starts with my fondness for Thai salads. People here eat an endless variety of them, all symphonizing the five S’s of Thai cuisine: salty, savory, sour, spicy, and sweet. I never go wrong with these flavors. Whenever I think I’ve tried the last and most delicious combination, along comes a new salad that nobody has mentioned before.

Sometimes in restaurants I just order at random from that section of the menu. Last weekend, though, I had a craving for fried egg salad. At a place where the offerings were written in a stylish-and-hard-to-read Thai font, I scanned the list looking specially for the word “egg.” When I found it, I didn’t see the word for “fried.” Instead, “egg” was followed by what I thought said “pee.” Then there was another word that can mean lots of things—come, horse, chair, dog—depending on its tone marker. I can never remember which is which.

That mishmash of language didn’t make sense, so I asked the waiter about it. He answered too quickly for me to understand everything he said, but I asked for the dish anyway. I guessed that he was describing the egg’s color, or that maybe Thais use the same word for “pee” that they use for “yolk.” Besides, food here is pretty cheap. If it’s really terrible I can always bail and start over.

The salad contained the kind of egg that I’ve always heard called “thousand-year-old.” This gourmet treat—prized throughout Asia—on its own isn’t my favorite food. But it tasted OK when blended with the marvelous five Thai S’s. I ate the whole thing and went home to tell Jip what I’d had for lunch. Actually, I still wasn’t really sure what I’d had.

“Horse piss egg!” she laughed.

Guess it’s time to memorize those tone marks.