Egg Shopping in Singapore: Fresh, Salted and Century Eggs 🥚🤩

The egg aisle at FairPrice Finest stopped me longer than an egg aisle normally should. My photograph from October 2022 shows fresh eggs, salted duck eggs, century eggs and enough packaging choices to make a simple purchase complicated.

“Eggs” was no longer one item on the shopping list. Some boxes contained fresh eggs for cooking. Others contained something already salted or preserved, with a very different taste and purpose.

Three labels worth telling apart

• Fresh eggs: the familiar starting point for frying, boiling or baking. My photograph also includes smaller quail eggs.
• Salted duck eggs: look for the preparation instructions. Some products are sold cooked and ready to eat; the word “salted” alone does not tell you that.
• Century eggs: preserved eggs, not eggs that have spent a hundred years on a shelf. I had eaten them in restaurants before considering a supermarket box. Their dark, jelly-like whites deserve a story of their own.

For a current illustration of the distinction, FairPrice lists preserved and salted eggs separately from ordinary fresh eggs, while Egg Story’s product range includes cooked salted duck eggs and ready-to-eat century eggs. Those descriptions apply to those products: I would still read the particular packet.

In the original note I was planning to try more of the selection. The photograph was the moment I realised that I had been giving eggs far too little attention.