As an evolved omnivore, I can extract nutrients from a variety of unsettling plant and animal products. In fact, the ones I treasure the most–alcohol, cheese, butter–are kind of gross upon a deeper examination. And the foodstuffs not ingrained in my own culture, the ones I find even more revolting, are equally edible…and generally presumed to be enhancers of male virility. Erections from bird saliva–who would have thought?
And to further push the boundaries of making this blog no longer family-friendly, let us consider the humble egg. That’s right, a chicken gamete. I often don’t consider the biology behind the food I consume, but one day I cracked and egg and into the pan fell the bloody indications of fertilization–I suppose that made it a zygote, for it not yet bore any indication of embryonic status.
Repulsed, I hesitated, for how often does one find a fertilized chicken egg in their soon-to-be omelet? Squander not an opportunity I say. And I knew intrinsically, probably from some long-forgotten documentary, that such an egg was indeed “a delicacy”. At the worst, it wouldn’t kill me. So, I cooked it and bit into it with determined curiosity, then promptly expectorated my sample into the sink. It tasted, unsurprisingly, of a bloody egg. Yuck.
I tell this story as a preface to another. This last weekend I cracked an egg (for the former experience was insufficient to turn me off eggs forever), and was pleasantly surprised with a new kind of novelty: a double yolk:
I suppose this means that a chicken could, in theory, have twin offspring. Naturally I took to Google to find evidence, but while the anecdotal postings confirmed the theory, they revoked the practice. Apparently two chicks can develop in an egg, but ultimately complications arise which doom the progeny.
Pity. I winced once again at the over-analysis of what I was eating, then added salt.
–Simon