My mother just came back from a trip to the store where they had all sorts of weird bird eggs, up to and including ostrich. People also eat fish eggs. But I can’t recall hearing about turtle eggs for sale, or a new diner’s fabulous sunny-side lizard.
My WAG here is that all reptile eggs come out fertilized, and it’s rather unappetizing to bite into a hard-boiled fetus. And reptiles aren’t as suited for mass production like chickens are. Aaaand it might be that reptile eggs don’t taste that good, or are hard to cook.
But human society tends to forage on whatever’s at hand and edible, and I’m sure, somewhere, there must be some society or culture that traditionally eats unusual eggs. I mean, you have people eating bugs, and palolo sea worm penises, and cheese with maggots- harvesting turtle eggs looks pretty normal in comparison.
Harvesting sea turtle eggs is very common in much of the tropics, to the extent that it is seriously endangering many populations. Eggs of freshwater turtles are also harvested in the Amazon. Here in Panama turtle eggs are regarded as an aphrodisiac.
People eat turtle eggs, and not just sea turtle eggs.
Reading the journal of a railroad surveyor for my area when everything was wilderness he describes that they ate some snake eggs thinking they were turtle eggs. They figured out they were snake eggs when some of them were found to have baby snakes in them.
Fertilized or no, this isn’t an issue if you gather them soon after laying, and store them in conditions unsuitable to incubation (such as in a fridge, or even, for most eggs, at room temperature). Any fetus would still be microscopic.
Aaand - my son, who will eat almost anything now, after having been so picky that he’d only eat about three things until age 25, has regaled me with stories of what I think are called balute eggs, a Philipine delicacy. These are duck eggs that have been fertilized and have developed waaaay far along. Many have quasi-feathers, etc. They are soaked in some liquid and I can’t provide much detail, but the fact that they’ve been fertilized is part of the draw. These are almost hatched birds. eeeeewww.
Central/South Americans eat iguana eggs. They don’t necessarily wait for them to be laid–I’ve read an account of a Colombian practice of cutting the eggs out of a gravid female, sewing up the wound, and letting the poor lizard go. When I was a kid, I had a book about iguanas that included a recipe for iguana stew that began “Catch a fat, female iguana around the months of…” The eggs were part of the recipe.
Those of you who watch Gilligan’s Island surely must know Mary Ann uses turtle eggs for her cakes and pancakes etc. Though one time she used duck eggs.
