16 Ways People Eat Eggs Around the World Slideshow

Which came first, the domestication of fowl or human consumption of the egg? Humans have been eating eggs since ancient times, although the recipes we use have surely come a long way. Some scholars think domestication of fowl began around 6,000 B.C. in China. Ancient Romans ate peafowl eggs, while pigeon eggs were popular in China; the Phoenicians had ostrich eggs, and elsewhere people have consumed the eggs of gulls, pelicans, ducks, geese, turtles, and even alligators. In honor of World Egg Day on Friday, October 9, here’s how 17 countries around the world enjoy eggs. 

Fried onions, fried egg, bacon, and barbecue sauce on a toasty roll? Sign us up.

This Austrian egg cake’s usual recipe includes beaten eggs, breadcrumbs, green onions, and optional Cheddar cheese. 

Matambre consists of very thinly sliced flank steak stuffed with hard-boiled eggs, vegetables, and herbs, then broiled or oven roasted. It’s sliced and served hot or cold. 

Don’t worry, the Chinese century egg, also known as pidan, is actually only a few weeks to a couple of months old. It’s made by preserving duck, chicken, or quail eggs in clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls, and letting the eggs age until they become briny and gelatinous.

This slow-cooked chicken stew contains whole hard-boiled eggs and is eaten by scooping the stew with injera, or flat pancakes made of a millet-like grain called teff. 

The croque monsieur, a quintessential French dish, is transformed into the croque madame simply by adding a fried or poached egg on top of the ham and cheese sandwich. It can be enjoyed any time of the day.

This creamy, lemony egg sauce is popular with vegetable dishes and also blends well with ground meat or rice; diluted with chicken stock, it makes an excellent soup. 

To make this delicious vegetarian dish, take a traditional onion, tomato, and green chili curry and liven it up with a few eggs. 

These poached eggs are blended together in a pan with onions, garlic, bell pepper, and tomato paste, often spiced with chili and cumin. This dish can be enjoyed at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

This Italian egg-drop soup is made with eggs, grated cheese, and a pinch of nutmeg, added to chicken stock with carrots and celery. It’s often eaten around the time of Easter.

This Japanese delicacy is prepared by slow-cooking an egg a low temperature in spring water until the yolk takes on a custard-like quality. Once the shell is removed, the egg is served in a small cup of broth and soy sauce. 

The name literally means “rancher’s eggs,” but you don’t have to be a farmhand to love fried eggs and tomato-chile sauce atop corn tortillas with a side of rice and beans. 

This New Zealand dish is a puff pastry filled with bacon and eggs, baked in a pie dish with a lid on top until brown. It's perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. 

This dish is not for the faint of heart. Conventionally sold as a street food in the Philippines, balut is a developing duck embryo that’s boiled alive and eaten straight out of the shell. It's also sometimes cooked adobo-style – with vinegar, soy sauce, and bay leaves – or baked into pastries. 

This samosa-like food envelops a whole egg in a pastry triangle with onion, tuna, harissa, and parsley. Then the whole thing is deep-fried and sometimes garnished with capers and cheese. 

Scotch eggs probably originated in London, despite their name, but no matter where they came from, hard-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded, and deep-fried are an ingenious invention.