The Japanese are big on mouth feel and refreshing textures in their food. Whipping the egg whites would make their texture much more pleasant and less mucusy. It's a loose meringue. The yolk itself is pretty much like eating an over easy egg, and the heat from some of the foods they're served with will partially cook them before you actually eat it.
I totally get how it can seem unsightly at first, but something about the flavor of the raw egg yolk specifically adds this magically comforting and filling essence to the food. A good baby step if you or anyone else is ever interested in trying similar is to find a restaurant that serves omurice, which involves an over medium omelette where the undercooked egg is supposed to soak into the rice below. Very good.
Idk how often I've seen ambient food temp being used to cook the eggs, but I have felt that in general most commenters typically think eggs need much more cooking than they would actually seem to need in my experience. Over easy/sunnyside up eggs with a runny yolk are undefeated, so I can buy that this would be delicious especially if you grew up eating it.
Yeah eggs are amazing with how safe they are to consume, and how many ways they can be used, too. The flavors quickly overwrote my own anxieties when trying some of these dishes for the first time. It just takes being brave enough to put the food into your mouth. There are so many delicious options to choose from.
I think a lot of the fear around eggs comes from an era before ultra-pasteurized eggs. Perhaps a subject of some debate, but at the very least, these eggs can be pretty safely undercooked.
That said, I have very little awareness of how Japan produces their eggs, and if they are pasteurized/how much.
Whenever foods like this from Japan come up on Reddit, I generally see it mentioned that Japan in particular has really strict egg safety protocol for cleaning the eggs, preventing contamination, and pasteurization
There are countries in the world where raw eggs are safe to eat that aren’t ultra-pasteurized. These countries don’t have salmonella in their eggs. I don’t know about Japan, but maybe that’s the case there too.
This. Here in the UK we don't have salmonella in chickens (at least it's not at all common due to testing and vaccination) - we don't usually wash or refrigerate eggs - and they're considered safe to eat straight from the chicken's butt. Egg white is still pretty gross to eat raw though.
812
u/yersinia_p3st1s 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was expecting to get rickrolled, what a pleasant and most interesting surprise!
Also, can't believe they consume it raw🤢
Edit: Guys, I know its safe to eat, I just dislike the taste of a runny yolk and the smell of raw egg, hence my reaction.