The Raw Egg Debacle of 2011

As many of you may have noticed I’ve been posting some rather strange sounding status updates via Facebook. These are the sillier tidbits that arise from google translate conversations I have with my host mother. Though most of the time we get along great we will occasionally butt heads over something that is usually rooted in cultural difference.

 “singing voice a lot to keep eating as many raw eggs such as solo singing is the easy and popular music or drink warm milk to eggs”

The largest traditional Easter egg in the world

This was towards the end of a conversation we were having about my aversion to raw egg. She had made a Romanian dish that had rice mixed with salami topped with a mixture of hard boiled and raw egg she called mayonnaise. I explained to her very politely that I don’t eat raw egg (not counting cookie dough on occasion). I was met with a look of confusion. Why would someone not eat raw egg? I’m fairly certain I sounded quite insane.

I went on to explain that doctors say raw egg is bad for you. (Let me just stop a second here and remind everyone that my host mother does not speak English (save for maybe 4 or 5 words) and this entire conversation up until now has been in Romanian.) This time I was met with a face of disbelief. That can’t be true, I’ve never heard that before. My response, of course, was let’s see what the internet has to say about all this. So I find some sites about e coli or salmonella translate it into Romanian for her to read. Her response was the line above. Which, I think, was her telling me that singers drink raw egg because it’s good for their voice. A convincing argument.

I also tried the approach of saying, you know how I don’t believe in Current (the idea that a breeze will cause headaches, earaches, and a myriad of different health problems (…yes, a breeze)) not eating raw egg something you don’t believe that is a common belief of my culture. I’m not sure how well that went over. In the end (and this whole dialog lasted a solid two hours) she jokingly said my doctor must be lying to me, and I straight up told her I wouldn’t eat it. I guess that counts as agreeing to disagree?  She also continued to offer it to me in the days to follow. If nothing she’s certainly persistent and does have a good sense of humor about these interactions as well. This is what gives me hope about living with her for the next two years.

Te pup! (Kisses)