Ducks may say “quack quack” when they speak English but in Chinese they say 呷呷 (gā gā). I suspect Lady Quackquack doesn’t know that!
S: 鸭蛋；T: 鴨蛋 (yā dàn), duck eggs are my default egg purchase here in China, as they are for many people. Specifically, I buy sea duck eggs from nearby Qinzhou in southern Guangxi. These birds live by the shores of the Gulf of Tonkin and are prized over other ducks both for their meat and eggs.
Qinzhou sea duck eggs
Larger than chicken eggs, and generally more ethically raised (no battery ducks, methinks) the eggs taste great. The fresh ones are noted for their deep yellow yolks and even richer taste. Duck eggs make for awesome scrambled eggs.
Contrary to some people’s expectations, the ducks don't generally eat fish, so aren’t at all fishy in taste. They mostly eat insects and are even used in paddy fields as natural insecticides.
The eggs have noticeably thicker shells so less chance of breaking them on the way home from the grocer’s shop.
Every store here carries duck eggs. Sea or land. Again in many forms. And in many colours; not that colour is any indication of anything else. They can be white, green, blue-shelled and more but what’s inside is the same.
Most salted eggs and most pidan/century eggs are made from duck eggs.
Salted duck egg
These are also sold individually wrapped as snacks.
Eat a traditional mooncake at Mid-Autumn Festival and you’ll bite into a salted duck egg yolk representing the moon. Yolks are sold seperate;y for this and similar applications. What they do with the whites, I don't know.
Mooncake with salted duck egg yolk
I’m told duck eggs are good for baking, but I’m no baker so take that as you like. I guess, given their larger yolks versus white, some adjustments may be necessary to your recipes.
Unlike other birds' eggs these are also sometimes sold roasted, which would please the English poet Alexander Pope who wrote in The second epistle of the second book of Horace: imitated by Mr. Pope.
"The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg."
Learned eggs
Finally, S: 吃鸭蛋; T: 吃鴨蛋 (chī yā dàn), to eat duck egg(s) is a figurative expression in Chinese meaning to score zero in a test or competition. Massive fail!
