'VIRGIN BOY EGGS' A TREAT IN CHINA

BUCKETS.....The urine is collected through buckets left outside the boys' toilets in Dongyang primary schools

EVERY culture has its own unique cuisine and rituals to make local delicacies that are thousands of years old are still passed on through families and via street vendors today.

But Dongyang, in the Zhejiang province of China may have one of the most unique foods that has carried over to modern times - virgin boy eggs.

These hard-boiled eggs are soaked and the boiled in the urine of boys under the age 10 before they are eaten as a delicacy in the small coastal town.

The urine for making them at home and for street vendors to use is collected through buckets left outside the boys' toilets in Dongyang primary schools.

SOAKED....The eggs are first soaked in urine before they are boiled and eaten.

Vendors who sell the eggs, like 51-year-old Ge Yaohua, claim that the 'fragrant' eggs have miraculous healing properties, promoting better circulation, increasing stamina and preventing heat stroke.

"They are good for your health," Ge told Reuters. "Our family has them for every meal. In Dongyang, every family likes eating them."

Many Dongyang residents, both young and old, believe these stories, and are happy to carry on a tradition passed down for many generations.

"By eating these eggs, we will not have any pain in our waists, legs and joints. Also, you will have more energy when you work," customer Li Yangzhen, 59, who bought 20 eggs from Ge, told the publication.

POURING....A street vendor pouring boy's urine onto the eggs

Chinese medical experts, however, view the product with some wariness, with some warning about sanitary issues surrounding the use of urine to cook food in the open air of a vendor's stall.

Not all Dongyang residents, meanwhile, approve of the tradition.

"I don't believe in all this," said Wang Junxing, 38, who declined some of Ge's eggs. "So I do not eat them."

Nonetheless, the centuries-old tradition continues to provide the eggs to local citizens en masse in the spring, when they are a popular snack for most.

The ritual using for making virgin boy eggs-a day-long process-continues to generate respect or at least curiosity among locals and tourists. (ibtimes)