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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Putting Your Eggs in One Basket? Never!

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Ray Petersen -


Nizwa, May 19 -


I really like the old Arabic proverb that reads, “If a stone falls upon the egg, alas for the egg, and if an egg falls on a stone, alas for the egg.” It implies that life is not fair, and that a stone will always be too much for an egg. But ……………….. Can you eat a stone?


In Latin, it’s ‘ovum’, in Arabic, ‘bedah’, in India it is ‘baithah’, in Russia ‘bomba’, and in France it is known as ‘oeuf.’ In German it’s simply, ‘ei’, in Spain it is ‘bola’, and the Maori of New Zealand call it ‘hua.’ A staggering 1.2 trillion eggs are produced annually around the world, and at last count Mexico, China and Japan were the greatest egg consuming nations in the world.


I never realised that American eggs are washed prior to consumer retailing, so would be illegal in the United Kingdom, where eggs must be presented, ‘au naturel.’ I also never knew the McDonalds chain is reluctant to cook eggs when they get busy because the grilling temperature for eggs is different to that of their burgers. I’ll never order a ‘Macca’s’ eggburger after midday again!


And did you know a hen turns her egg roughly fifty times each day to ensure that it doesn’t stick to the side of the warm shell.


The humble egg is among the most complex food items we are able to utilise, with significant amounts of calcium carbonate, vitamins, riboflavin, minerals and fats. Can you believe that it’s also composed of thirteen constituent parts, the white (albuminous sac), the yolk, which is the yellow bit in the middle, and of course the shell? ‘adashofscience.com’ has identified all of these parts of an egg which include three membranes, and three different liquids, and seven other elements.


It may surprise you to know, as it did me, that whether an egg is brown or white doesn’t matter, as both have the same nutritional value, but, an egg has more nutritional value cooked than raw, so that’s another myth destroyed.


The yolk contains most of its vitamins, while proteins and minerals are in the ascendancy of the white. And, did you know that you shouldn’t store eggs in an environment with food items that have a very strong odor such as garlic, because eggshells are porous? I never!


My wife told me that the eggs that stay plump and round when you break them into a pan are fresh, while those that go flattish, are older. You will sometimes also see that there is some separation between the three different albumen (white) parts of the egg if they are old. In that case you are best not to eat them at all, and even though I looooooooove soft poached eggs, no eggs should ever be eaten undercooked due to one in 20,000 having low levels of salmonella.


All of 9,000 years ago, in Egypt, India and China, wild birds were captured so that people could eat their eggs. But it was about 2,500 years ago that eggs became a favoured delicacy, and history tells us that in Iran, the first day of the Zoroastrian New Year was celebrated by decorating, sharing and eating eggs. Soon after, ancient medicinal processes, as devised by Hippocrates, he of the medical oath, were greatly based upon using the egg as a teaching and learning tool, especially in terms of childbirth (Kilgrove, 2016). It’s also believed that in many societies two thousand years ago, young, and prematurely born children were buried with an egg in their hand in an allusion to rebirth. In fact the archaeologists who excavated sites of Rome in its pomp wrote that the egg “Is most likely a symbol of rebirth, a new life balancing the injustice of a premature end.”


Eggshells contain so much calcium that, apparently, even the water you use to boil eggs should be used as nutrition for your plants, and the shells should always be used in compost, as they decompose much quicker than you would think. Eggs can be useful as a jewellery or leather cleaner, and as most kids know, egg whites make great glue for those school projects. Egg tempera paints have a very short life on the pallet, but prove long-lasting and resilient on canvas. Egg whites have also been used to repair leaking radiators, but should be a last resort as they can also affect parts of your radiator system that is actually okay, adversely. Eggs make an amazing cookie glaze, and an effective peel-off face mask too.


The oh so ordinary egg is actually far from ordinary in terms of feminine beauty treatments, with egg based hair shampoos common today, but apparently you can do just as well adding some olive oil and perfume to an egg, mixing it all together and applying it to your hair. Of course, and this is surely a feminine thing, women are


divided as to whether the whole egg or just the yolk, or just the white, should be used. My advice is to try them all, and give your hair ‘new life.’


Croque Monseiur, Croque Madame, Eggs with soldiers, Devilled Eggs, Eggs Benedict, Scotch Eggs, Manchester Eggs, Pickled Eggs, Frittata, Omelette, scrambled, boiled, poached and fried eggs. Sunny side up, over easy, over medium, basted, hard boiled, soft boiled, hard scrambled, soft scrambled, or baked. However you like them, you can have them.


Having added to your egg-cyclopedic knowledge, it is probably not an egg-zageration to say that eggs are eggs-ellent, eggs-actly what our bodies need, not eggs-essive, and they eggs-emplify healthy eating. It’s eggs-tremely eggs-citing what you can do with an egg, providing eggs-ilarating and often eggs-otic culinary fare. They are ineggs-pensive, and you don’t have to be an eggs-pert to cook them.


Eggs-plore it, eggs-pose it, eggs-tend your knowledge and understanding of eggs, eggs-tolling the merits of this eggs-traordinary food source. Eggs-travagent, eggs-troverted, and eggs-uberant, take a walk on the wild side with eggs, today!


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