Talk:Century egg
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[edit] Category: Fermented foods?
I don't think century eggs shall belong to the fermented foods category. Correct me if I am wrong. I think the egg is hardened by the infused OH- ion and its smell comes from released SO2. -- Toytoy 14:47, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Characterization of pidan as a "delicacy"
Pidan (a.k.a. thousand year old egg) is neither rare nor prized. It should not be described as a delicacy. --71.123.61.112 18:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Literal translation of the Chinese term for pidan
The Chinese term for pidan (a.k.a. thousand year old egg) is "皮蛋". "皮" (pí in Pinyin) literally means skin, and "蛋" (dàn in Pinyin) literally means egg. Leather (processed hide) in Chinese is "皮革". "皮" is also used attributively as an adjective for items made of leather.
In the absence of reliable etymological evidence, translating "皮" as "leather" is unsupported.
"Skin egg", as a literal translation, is not meaningful in English.
For these reasons, I think the literal meaning of pidan is best explained in terms of the meaning of the constituent characters in the Chinese name, e.g. phrased as "skin (pí) + egg (dàn)".
It avoids relying on particular (possibly incorrect) interpretation of the semantic structure of the Chinese name. It also does not make any unsupported etymological suggestions. --71.123.61.112 19:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The article doesn’t say where the English name “century egg” comes from. That would be interesting to know. I once saw an episode of Fear Factor where the contestants were to eat “one-hundred-year-old eggs.” They looked just like century eggs. I think the show must have made a bad assumption because of the name. 64.66.67.161 20:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
