Century Egg - 17th Sept

I've actually longed to know how century egg is made and is it only until recently that I'm able to find this piece of information online. Old grandmother's stories is that century egg is made with mercury, which is the explanation for it's jelly like texture and it's dark black-brown color. It said that the duck egg is soaked in mercury for a few days which then the egg would absorb some of the mercury and thus preserving it. The thing is, mercury is poisonous, why would anyone eat poison directly? Well, I guess that's not true.

Century egg is produced in a couple of ways, either the modern or traditional way. In both ways, alkaline is introduced into the egg, by using natural ingredients such as wrapping clay around the egg traditionally or chemicals such as calcium hyroxide in teh modern form. Although this, I'm still not sure what causes for it to turn into the texture it is now. But well, at least I'm relieved that it is not made of mercury as previously assumed and there isn't much harm in consuming it. But, there's no point if it is consumed often as it would lose the appeal of it as a delicacy.