Conference turris::cooks

    I grew up in Ohio and we had white eggs all the time.  I think the main
    difference is the thickness of the shell.  Brown eggs have a thicker
    shell than white eggs.
    
    New Englanders seem to think there is something wrong with white eggs
    and only buy them to dye for Easter eggs.  Therefore, white eggs are
    cheaper here - I suppose they are on the shelves longer too.  I buy
    them all the time here.
    
    Mary Lou

    Mike,
    
    Although double yolk eggs are not as common as single yolk, they are
    not rare.  I used to live in a community that had MANY farms that
    raised chickens for egg production, and raised them myself. As birds
    get older they lay larger eggs, although production drops somewhat.
    Quite often farmers will hold the birds after they've stopped their
    first cycle of production (MOLTING), and after several months the birds
    are ready to lay again.
    
    Naturally being full grown they start out laying larger eggs. and often
    will lay double, and sometimes triple yolks.  
    
    I've seen stores where you can buy double yolks if you want. They can
    tell the difference when they CANDLE them.
    
    I've never noticed much of a difference when using them, but some
    people claim that they are better to use for baking things  IE: cakes,
    cookies, pies, etc..
    
    Nils

    Having been raised in New England, I grew up using brown eggs, and
    never saw white ones except at Easter. I never noticed a difference
    then, and now that I've moved around the country a bit, I still don't
    think there's any difference.
    
    As .1 mentioned, the brown eggs do seem to have a thicker shell, but
    I don't think there is any taste difference.
    
    Nils

    I've gotten cartons of double-yolk eggs at a food co-op; I think
    they're not commonly found in supermarkets because of the potential
    consumer reaction, as in "Oh my gosh, these chickens are from
    Chernobyl!" etc.  No difference in taste or texture from "normal" eggs,
    and as .2 pointed out, it's a natural phenomenon.
    
    P.

Gosh - I always had a sense that brown shelled eggs were more fragile (i.e.
thinner shell) than whites (which I grew up with in upstate NY).

In general, the most popular producer of white eggs is the leghorn and
the most popular producer of brown eggs is the Rhode Island Red. The
former is a lightly pigmented bird, the latter a dark pigmented one. I
dunno why they don't raise more leghorns in New England.

-Jack

In Southern NH I've seen ads saying "Brown eggs are fresher because
they're from local farms. White eggs are shipped in from other parts of
the country." ...Dunno if that's true, but we have always tried to buy
eggs from local (Nashua-Milford area) chicken farms. Those eggs have
always been brown. 

As I sit here today I can't think of a single commercial egg farm in this
immediate area. There are a couple of people in the Milford/Amherst area
who have one or two dozen chickens, and we get our eggs from them. Why?
We believe the yolks are richer and darker (for whatever value), and we
*know* they're fresher, because they're yesterday's or today's eggs. 

A friend who used to be in the egg business (78,000 hens {all laying
brown eggs}) told us that when a DeMoulas or Alexander's has a big egg
sale, those eggs are very likely a month old. I believe it. We regularly
had month-old eggs aboard ship.

    Double-yolk eggs aren't rare at all.  Double-yolk eggs that reach the
    market may well be.  My guess is that most consumers would probably be
    weirded out or worried over getting an "abnormal" egg.
    
    My parents kept a hen coop when I was young, and it was my job to
    gather the eggs.  The hens gave us double-yolk eggs all the time. We
    always assumed it was the older hens who were responsible. The hens who
    were just beginning to lay gave us all kinds of strangely-shaped
    eggs--most were extremely small, some were round rather than ovoid.  
    We kids thought it was a great treat to have a "miniature" fried egg
    for breakfast.
    
    Sue

    There used to be a little (annoying) jingle on the radio for brown eggs
    that went:
    
    "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh."
    
    I grew up in NYC and ate white shelled eggs till I came to New England.
    Even though the jingle was annoying, I switched because brown eggs were
    cheaper and I liked the idea of supporting local farmers.  I never
    noticed any difference in taste.
    
    ****

    As far as I can tell, eggs are eggs - we don't eat many of them anyhow,
    but I buy whatever color eggs are cheaper.  Here in east-central Mass.,
    the white ones are usually cheaper except arund Easter.  I stopped
    buying "jumbo" eggs because I was seeing a lot of double-yolked eggs,
    and it is hard with those to separate them so you can use just the
    white (the medication my husband is on raises his cholesterol, so he
    isn't supposed to be eating the yolks - actually, he mainly just
    doesn't eat eggs - never liked them much anyhow).  As far as separating
    them goes, it is easier with older eggs because the whites get runnier.
    
    /Charlotte
    
    PS - Yes, I know that duck eggs, etc., do not taste exactly like
    chicken eggs.  But we eat even fewer non-chicken eggs than we do
    chicken eggs.  I did eat some preserved duck eggs at Chinese New Year.

It's nice to hear that double-yolk eggs are common. I suspected that
people in the business see them often, but didn't realize the marketing
folks would think people would get bothered, and keep them out of the
stores. We always thought it was neat.

We did notice that the double-yolk eggs had proportionately more yolk,
and the result was very obvious in a genoise, which is pretty sensitive
to the quality of the eggs. It had a different consistency and much
more "egg" flavor. Not bad, though.

Re separating double-yolk eggs, I'm not quite sure why there should be
any difference. At least we didn't notice any (we separate with our fingers).

Re quality of brown vs white, we never noticed any difference,
regardless of which was "local" and which was "imported". We buy first
for freshness (by date code), and second for price.

    
    Brown eggs are easier to crack without smashing the shell.  They also
    make much prettier Easter eggs than white eggs, having very deep and
    vibrant colors as opposed to the washed out pastel colors you get when
    using white eggs.  Just my opinion.
    
    If a double-yolked egg were left with the hen to full term, would two
    chicks hatch out?

    In response to 3461.11.... No you don't get twins with double yolks. 
    In all the years of raising chickens/hens (about 200K of them) I never
    heard my dad mention twins.  We used to hatch about 10k every spring
    around March.  Local city folks (as we called them) used to come
    tromping out to the farm to buy baby chicks for Easter.  Following the
    first couple of weeks we got many calls to come re-claim the baby
    chicks back, because........ There is no way to housebreak a chicken.
    
    Leghorns, are a white hen which usually you find in the South, grown a
    lot for cooking purposes.  They don't get as big as the Rhode Island
    Reds.  Running maybe 5# tops.  While the Reds would run up to as much
    as 8 - 10#.  Reds are the ones you see in the store under stewing hens. 
    Leghorns would more likely be your fryers.
    
    Brown eggs are more apt to have darker yolks, because of the nature of
    the breed, led people to think that there was more fat content in the
    egg, don't know if that was ever proven.
    
    Most eggs that are sold in stores are at least a month old.  Because of
    the added fat content of double yolk eggs they spoil quicker, and the
    USDA has a shorter life span placed on them.  All eggs must be either
    hand or electronically candled prior to sale.  Mostly what they are
    watching for are blood spots, which are not harmful, but very
    unappetizing.  They are nothing more than a ruptured membrane.  Basicly 
    it's against the law to sell uncandled eggs.
    
    Just my .02.....
    Bon
    

Thanks, your info is really great!

There seems to be a number of us who've raised chickens at one time or another.

A couple comments:

	When you go to buy chicks, you do so with the end product in mind.
		Do you want the chickens for eggs, or for meat, or both?

		If you want eggs, then the leghorns are fine.  They take the
		  feed you give them and produce eggs, very little goes to
		  build meat (they are about the scrawniest things you ever
		  saw after the feathers come off).

		If you want meat, then you get barred rocks, or some other
		  fast growing bird where you're not likely to care if their
		  egg production 'cause they aren't going to live that long.

		If you want some of both then the Rhodies are a good choice,
		  the hens you'll keep to lay eggs (brown ones) for a couple
		  years adn then you get the "stewing hens" referred to earlier.
		  The males grow fast and wind up being roasters..

	As far as eggshell thickness, I always attributed it to the health of
	the birds and their diet.  I got the thickest shells when there were
	lots of insects for the birds to scratch around for and the thinest
	ones when the bug population was down and I hadn't started supplementing
	the diet with high calcium feed, the thin shells were one way to tell
	I was doing something wrong.  We also found the real dark orange yolks
	came when the birds were ranging (eating bugs etc) and the yellow yolks
	when they were on straight chicken-feed from the feed-store.

FWIW...

Al

Neat.

I realize this is already discussed elsewhere, but let me ask some of
you former growers a question: in your opinion, what's the story about
the current concern for salmonella in eggs (and, of course, adult
chickens)? A number of acquaintances in the "middleman" business
(shippers, wholesalers, etc.) feel that the salmonella has always been
there to some extent, but that recent efforts by growers to increase
profits have resulted in lax practices which have increased the
bacteria count in the birds (who are, themselves, immune to its effects).

On the other hand, acquaintances at the retail end blame the middlemen
for declining care in handling (leaving eggs and slaughtered chickens
in warm places for long times, etc), which is, in turn, caused by poor
education and general loss of awareness about sanitary food practices.

Finally, some folks in the medical profession have said they think
there's no change whatsoever, and that people are simply becoming more
aware of when and how they contract salmonella poisoning. For example,
my brother-in-law, a doctor (pathologist) who loves eggs in all forms,
says he hasn't changed a thing about his habits with respect to eggs,
and sees no reason to.

Any other opinions?

    I live in New England and have always preferred using white eggs.  I
    guess I have found fewer blood spots when I break them open - probably
    because when candled...the shell was thinner and bloodspots were more 
    easily detected.
    
    I find the 'large' white eggs a bit bigger than the brown - and a bit
    more expensive.
    
    
    
    

Back when I went to Uconn, a buddy of mine brought me home to Norwich for some
errands one weekend.  We stopped at a local chicken farm for some eggs.  He
said that the place had great fresh eggs, and that you could buy whole dozens
of double and triple yolked eggs.  We did.  Some of these were so super jumbo
that the lid on the carton would not close.  The stretch marks on the eggs made
me have instant pity on them poor chickens.  There were at least 2 triple yolked
eggs in the box, by the way, but mostly double.

    I think it's amazing how brown eggs come in many sizes but white only
    comes in "large"!!!
    
    (Actually I know it's a local marketing anomaly.  I used to tend 10000
    chickens, once upon a time.)
    
    ed

	What's candling?

<	What's candling?



Candling is looking at an egg which is backlit, that is the egg is between
your eye and some light source (in the old days a candle).  Because the egg
shell is thin and somewhat translucent, candling lets the farmer (or whoever) 
see what's inside the egg (spots, double yolk, etc.).  Try it.  It's a great
activity for the kids...


Al

Candling is also a way to tell hard-cooked from raw eggs -- in case you
aren't too good at the spin test.

    Read in the Globe a few months ago that NE farmers prefer brown-egg
    laying chickens because they have "a better temperament."  
    
    Grew up on a farm in Indiana and our "brown-egg" hens were just as
    nasty as the "white-egg" variety.
    
    Never heard of the spin test.  But on the equinoxes (equinoxii?) you
    can balance raw eggs on end.  Must have a smooth, hard, mostly level
    surface.

    This has been very interesting.  
    
    Not ever having chickens myself, I can only go by what family and
    those friends who did have chicken told me as I was growing up.
    
    In the "old days" New Englanders only would buy brown eggs because
    they were locally grown (harvested?).  White eggs came from out of
    state and therefore not as fresh.  I imagine with today's better
    shipping and storage methods they are all the same as for freshness
    but habits are hard to break.
    
    Me, I buy white since they are cheaper here in central Mass. But then
    I don't buy many eggs anymore, anyway.
    
    Speaking of freshness, you can tell just how fresh an egg is when
    you break it.  If the yolk is high, and the white is "tight," it is
    fresh.  The tighter the white and the higher the yolk, the fresher
    the egg.  Problem is, you can't tell that until you've cracked the
    egg.
    
    In Littleton, only about 5 years or so ago, we had an egg receiving
    station.  Farmers from all over New England would ship their eggs
    there to be candled, boxed, shipped out.  I used to go in there and
    buy eggs real cheap.  You'd see boxes for just about all the
    supermarket chains.  The egg station has now been expanded and 
    converted into a half-empty mini-mall...(Progress?)
    
      

    Just remembered.  Another think about the size of eggs.  I remember
    cost fluctuated according to the season.
    
    I think it was early summer when "peewees" would be cheapest. If
    not early summer, it was when the newly hatched chicks had just
    started to lay. As the chicken population aged, the eggs got larger.
    
    And as for non-edible eggs, we once had a parakeet that laid eggs.
    It was so cute.  The eggs were about the size of the nail on my ring
    finger.  She kept trying to hatch them but with no daddy around, she
    didn't have much luck.

<    Never heard of the spin test.  But on the equinoxes (equinoxii?) you
<    can balance raw eggs on end.  Must have a smooth, hard, mostly level
<    surface.

  The "spin test" is a phenomenon of the inertia of the liquid center of a raw
egg. If you try to spin a raw egg on one of the pointy ends the egg will barely
complete one turn before it falls over and stops spinning because you are
spinning the shell, but the inertia of the liquid center dampens the rotation.
A hardboiled egg on the otherhand will spin like a top because you are making
the middle of the egg rotate at the same speed as the shell. 

  It's just a quick way to tell if the egg in your hand is cooked or raw.

Al

    We used to have chickens years ago and my father always said the shell
    thickness was the result of how much lime the chicken ate.  They need
    it for their gizzard which starts the digestion process.  Eggs are sold
    by weight; peewees to jumbo.  You can put them on the scale while you
    candle them.  As a kid this was great fun.  I used to do it all the
    time.  We had double-yolkers too.  That was exciting.  We had Rhode
    Island Reds.  After the war when meat prices/availability was greater
    we ate the remainder.  They were too much work/expense.  Chickens lay
    one egg per day but they prepare for the event many days in advance.
    If you slaughter a hen you will get eggs in all the stages of
    production.  That in itself is an education.
    Kris

    This is from Trivial Pursuit and I don't know here they get their
    stats:
    
    An average chicken lays 19 dozen eggs per year.
    
    If I remember right...
    :-)
    
    ed

    Do you have to refrigerate eggs?  
    
    Some recipes call for room temp eggs and I have left them out all day,
    ie taken them out before I go to work, then make the dish when I get
    home.  Am I taking a risk of salmonella?
    

    I am not stupid - and I guess I know the obvious - but I'll ask the
    question anyway.
    
    Do chickens mate - when - and if they (as in .26) have eggs in all
    stages...how does this process work?
    
    Something that appears to be so simple sounds complicated to me.
    
    Hope a lot of you out there aren't laughing at me...
    

    Yes, chickens mate, if there's a rooster about.
    
    I imagine that each egg that's growing can be fertilized since
    they are indeed only a single [half?]-cell.
    
    My daughter studied genetics and tells me that it's the roosters
    who have the unmatched chromosomes, and not the hens.  [Yet
    another Fowl Factoid!]
      
    ed

re: .28, GAIL

>  Am I taking a risk of salmonella?

My understanding on this (and I'm open to corrections) is that salmonella is
a risk only if the egg was exposed to salmonella bacteria (which isn't
necessarily the natural case for an egg which came from an uninfected
operation.) However, an egg left at room temperature for too long might
be susceptible to other bacterial problems as well, just as any food
left out might. I'm not sure how long "too long" is. To be safe, I normally
take my eggs out of the fridge fresh when I need them, and bring them up
to room temperature by putting them in some warm (60-70 F) water for a
while.

-Jack

    re:  .30
    
    ...so, an egg grows automatically (never knew that !!!) and it would
    become a baby chick - IF the rooster mates with the hen?
    
    Aha!  I am stupid after all   :^)   cause I never knew that.
    
    This is a good topic - I've learned a great deal.  Thanks
    
    M
    

    I know that most cooking directions specify that eggs should reach room
    temp before being used for cooking but I don't think I've given an egg
    more than 20 minutes to warm up and often mine got from fridge to
    recipe with no more than a minute to warm up.
    
    As for roosters, since you would never want to crack open an egg with a
    partially grown chick, no egg laying flock would ever have a rooster in
    it unless the purpose was to hatch chicks.  I guess modern methods
    prevent hens from even coming in contact with each other, let alone
    male company.
    
    ed                                           

    Re fertilized eggs: One of the uses of candling is to ensure no "embryo
    surprise" in cases where a rooster might have access to the hens.
    However, I seem to recall that, during the '70s (?) there was a flurry
    of "fertilized eggs are healthier for you" in the health-food sector.
    (I assume they meant "just barely fertilized eggs," as opposed to
    "almost ready to hatch" fertilized eggs, although in that case the
    difference in nutritional levels must have been pretty limited; what
    _is_ the nutritional content of a chicken zygote, anyway?)
    
    -b

    I recall in reading cooking on board type articles that eggs may be
    kept for weeks unrefrigerated if give a light coating of olive oil. 
    (Bacterial block for thru shell beasties).

RE: .34

Well, an almost-ready-to-hatch egg doesn't have all that cholesterol.  It's
been turned into chicken meat by that point.

--PSW

 Addressing the issue of how long an egg will keep-

   When the hen lays an egg it is wet (needs that lubrication), the lubricant
dries sealing the egg shell from the outside air.  It follows then that once
the egg is washed, the porus shell is now directly exposed to the air, and
you increase the risk for getting air etc into the egg causing spoilage.

FWIW

Al

Al is right about the coating or "bloom" on an unwashed egg. An egg
which hasn't been washed or refrigerated (which would cause the bloom
to be dissolved by condensation) will easily keep, unrefrigerated, for
a couple of weeks. It's normal practise outside of the US to sell eggs
this way (unwashed and unrefrigerated). That way, you can store them
according to your preferences and needs (eggs, cheese, butter, fruits
and vegetables aren't refrigerated in places where refrigerators are
small or non-existent).

Since eggs in the US are always refrigerated, this possibility is
eliminated, along with the possibility of avoiding picking up
refrigerator odors. But are US eggs also washed? I would think there'd
be no need to do this other than for market appeal. And washing would
seem to increase health risks, too.

>Since eggs in the US are always refrigerated, this possibility is
>eliminated, along with the possibility of avoiding picking up
>refrigerator odors. But are US eggs also washed? I would think there'd
>be no need to do this other than for market appeal. And washing would
>seem to increase health risks, too.

it is mistaken to believe that eggs are always refrigerated in the
US, I have seen them for sale in places with a large population of recent
immigrants (my neighborhood for instance) both refrigerated and at room
temp.  Eggs are not washed prior to sale (at least in California) and the
state recommends that you do not wash them in order to prevent contamination.
The "Egg Council" sends out free brochures with several nice omelet recipes
and recomendations for handling.  It is however, a very good point to mention
that eggs which have been refrigerated must continue to be refrigerated, as
the "bloom" which protects them has been compromised by moisture condensation
while under refrigeration.

Your average supermarket egg should not be left out on a counter all day.  It
can lead to bacterial buildup and possible illness.  An egg should come to
room temperature in no more than 2 hours and then should be fine to use for
meringues and other needs where volume is important.  You can also simply
put the egg in a plastic bag, and then into tepid water for 30 minutes to
bring the temperature up prior to use.  

    If there is no date on the egg carton, how long can one keep eggs
    purchased in a supermarket, in the refrigertor?
    
    linda
    

    RE:  warming eggs
    
    Why should the egg go into a plastic bag before warming in water?  I
    always stick the eggs in a small bowl of warm water and haven't noticed
    any problem.  Maybe I am missing something?
    
    RE:  fertilized eggs
    
    I always wondered why the health-food people thought fertilized eggs
    are better.  Does anyone know?  I guess it has to do with "natural
    energy" or some such. ?
    
    btw, fertilized eggs are not considered kosher.  Kosher cooks break
    each egg separately into a small bowl to inspect it before use.
    
    RE:  preserved eggs
    
    Who has eaten them?  What do they taste and smell like?  I'm curious.
    
    Laura
    (I_Am_Curious_Yellow???)

  RE:  I_Am_Curious_Yellow???
    
    BBBB     OOO     OOO     OOO      OOO
    B   B   O   O   O   O   O   O    O   O
    B   B   O   O   O   O   O   O    O   O
    BBBB    O   O   O   O   O   O    O   O
    B   B   O   O   O   O   O   O    O   O
    B   B   O   O   O   O   O   O    O   O
    BBBB     OOO     OOO     OOO      OOO
    
    :-)

Our Navy cooks broke *every single* egg into a bowl. They were cooking for about
1150 men. Lots of single eggs going into a bowl. They hated to cook fresh
eggs for this reason. 

    Eggs keep for weeks and weeks, at least refrigerated ones do - we eat
    so few eggs that the tend to be around for a long time in my house
    except if I have had to bake something like refreshments for some
    function.  I don't know how long they would keep unrefrigerated.  The
    whites get runnier and runnier as the eggs get older - makes them
    eaiser to separate, but I don't think they would make a great omelette,
    if you are into frying lots of eggs (of course, if you are, your eggs
    don't sit around for ten weeks, either).
    
    Preserved duck eggs taste like, well, preserved duck eggs.  The white
    turns into a gelatinous soy-sauce colored, semi-transparent form, but
    still tastes basically like hard-boiled eggwhite.  The yolks turn an
    olive green, and are softer than hardboiled eggyolks, sort of custardy.
    The yolks does not taste exactly like a hardboiled egg - though I have
    never hardboiled duck eggs anyway and so the yolk may taste just like a
    hrdboiled duck eggyolk, who knows?  A fair number of American people
    are squeamish about the preserved eggs, even after I explain what they
    are.  If you won't eat things you can't identify, the only way to
    survive one of our open-house parties, with all manner of "unusual"
    ethnic foods, is to hang around near me or Paul and ask us before you
    eat something (ditto if you are allergic to something like onions, like
    one of my previous managers is, the poor guy!).  The dick eggs are a
    lot easier to deal with if you buy them with the rice-straw stuff they
    are pickled in already removed since cleaning the eggs otherwise makes
    an immense mess - though it is nothing compared to cleaning salty eggs
    to make something with salty-egg yolks (those are pickled in some kind
    of messy black ash which I think is made by burning rice straw).
    
    /Charlotte
    

    RE: warming eggs in a plastic bag
    
    	I'm not sure--the only thing I can think of is that eggshells are
    porous, and bacteria in the water could possibly find its way through
    the shell?  
    
    RE: why fertilized eggs are "better"
     	
    My guess is that somehow those kind of folks think it's "healthier" and
    "more natural" to eat eggs that are the product of "healthy" and
    "natural" interactions between hens and roosters.  Total balderdash, in
    my opinion.  I've accidently cracked open enough "healthy" and
    "natural" partially developed fertilized eggs to know that it's totally
    gross.  
    	

>    	I'm not sure--the only thing I can think of is that eggshells are
>    porous, and bacteria in the water could possibly find its way through
>    the shell?  
    
it may be senseless, but I was taught that the egg will get water in it
if you don't bag it first...and, of course, water is not desirable for
meringue, etc.

re:  .44  /Charlotte


>                                                               The white
>   turns into a gelatinous soy-sauce colored, semi-transparent form, but
>   still tastes basically like hard-boiled eggwhite.  The yolks turn an
>   olive green, and are softer than hardboiled eggyolks, sort of custardy.

Aha!!  So this is where Dr. Seuss got his "Green Eggs and Ham" story.  I 
always wondered about that.

Thanks!

;^)

Steve   

re .41
    
<    btw, fertilized eggs are not considered kosher.  Kosher cooks break
<    each egg separately into a small bowl to inspect it before use.

  Early on we had roosters running with our brood of hens so I am assuming
that the eggs we ate were fertilized.  Whereas we picked up our eggs every
day and promptly refrigerated them chicks never developed.

  I do not recall any visible difference between the fertilized eggs and
the eggs we got after I couldn't deal with the crowing at 5am anymore (i.e.
no more rooster).  We had as many "blood spots" in the eggs after the rooster
died as we did before.  

  What is the kosher cook looking for and how does she/he tell the difference?

Al

While I confess my knowledge of Kosher laws is minimal, I believe it's
blood spots (and anything more advanced) which are the problem. If you
can just as easily find blood spots on unfertilized eggs, the Kosher
laws don't make any distinction: blood spot = no good.

    I think the blood spot makes the egg "meat" rather than inedible, but I
    am not a kashrut expert (we keep kosher only at Passover).  I don't
    think I have ever seen blood on or in an egg anyhow, but we don't eat
    many of them, as I said.
    
    /Charlotte

While all this is interesting, it's probably only loosely germane to
cooking. Be that as it may, I'll continue the digression (sorta). Some
years back I read the Commerce Business Daily publication, which is a
daily listing of US Government projects for which they were seeking
contractors. One of the recurring items was the search for vendors to
provide Walter Reed Army Hospital with 10,000 *fertile* white duck eggs
per month. I don't think they wanted them for breakfast.

>    As for roosters, since you would never want to crack open an egg with a
>    partially grown chick, no egg laying flock would ever have a rooster in
>    it unless the purpose was to hatch chicks.  I guess modern methods
>    prevent hens from even coming in contact with each other, let alone
>    male company.

   Actually, in the Phillipines, they like to eat cooked eggs with
   partially grown chicks inside - I don't know the  spelling but
   it's called something like "blut".  This from my brother when he was
   over there in the Navy.

   There's a lot of really far-out food from the far-east you won't
   read about in Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook!

    - Jim

    I think the fertile duck eggs are for producing vaccines - I can recall
    several childhood vaccinations where I was asked if I was allergic to
    duck egg whites.  Things like measles vaccine come to mind.
    
    /Charlotte

    
    My son did a little science project once where he kept an egg immersed
    in vinegar for a week.  It turned the egg to rubber, which was really
    neat to see.
    
    I, for one, am very happy to know the eggs I buy are unfertilized, as I
    was laboring under the impression that you had to have the rooster
    interaction to make an egg in the first place.  (The things teenagers
    will tell each other!)  I used to worry that I might crack open an egg
    and have a little chick fall out...
    
    About the bloom preserving an egg without refridgeration, an earlier
    note mention using oil to coat an egg to protect it.  Will that work?
    
    Helen

    My daughter just asked "Why dont we eat Turkey eggs?'
    
    And I replied "Duh?"
    
    Any answers?
    

>    My daughter just asked "Why dont we eat Turkey eggs?'
    
turkeys don't lay them as often as chickens...and they are much bigger.  If
you want eggs from turkeys, I'm sure you can get them...but your cholesterol
would be outa sight if you ate them regularly.  As we have developed a taste
for chicken hen eggs, the chicken is the animal that is hormonaly adjusted 
to serve our needs...primarily through careful selective breeding these days,
as hormones are bad for us.  A turkey could have been developed that would
have laid eggs everyday too, but it would be costlier to maintain the layers,
size of animal being a factor in space and feed requirements.

Historically speaking, the chicken was easier to transport, more readily
available when we were developing our taste for eggs (turkeys are indigenous
to this continent and nowhere else)...and they got elected.

Yes, that agrees with what I've heard. Chickens are good producers and
relatively easy to manage.

The larger the bird, the lower the rate of egg production (in general).
Some small birds produce plenty of eggs, but they're so small that they
begin to become impractical (eggs too small, birds too hard to manage).
Chicken eggs have been the winner for millenia, though other eggs have
always been available and consumed.

Ostrich eggs are available in some parts of the world, too :-).

    
                               Egg Storage
    
                          From "Kitchen Science"

    "Upright" is the correct way of egg-storing, with the larger end up
    (tapered end down). Upright storage helps retard spoilage because it
    maximizes the distance between the yolk and the egg's natural air
    pocket. That air space is potentially the egg's most prolific breeding
    environment for airborn pathogenic bacteria, and the yolk is more
    perishable than the egg white.

re: .58

I guess that implies that the yolk tends to "sink" rather than "float" in
the white.

I have another egg question. Occasionally when I hard boil some eggs, on
shelling them I find clusters of grey spots on the surface of the white.

What's this likely to be caused by? (I never let it bother me much.)

-Jack

    Need information on Blue Eggs and Cholesterol.
    
    They are small and very lite-blue color and from normal appearance hens.
    
    My father has two hens that he bought when he was told about the
    Blue-Eggs and some research about their cholesterol. It seems to
    be that these eggs are very-very low in cholesterol.
    
    Has someone heard about this, that can give me more information
    about research test results? 
    
    By the way, my father has more than 15 chicken from those blue-eggs.
    
    Their food is normal corn (not blue corn).
    
    Hope that anyone knows about this,
    Alvin

    I have never heard of Blue Eggs, but then I live a very sheltered
    life...  The only thing that would lower your cholesterol is the
    smaller amount of yolk, as there is no cholesterol in egg white.  Many
    chickens have smaller yolks, a couple are banttie's and white leghorns. 
    Just because of the egg that they lay, they have less fat content. 
    
    
    Bon

    No Bon, I've led a sheltered life.
    
    
    Michael  B^)

    I've been using Eggbeaters lately in baking and cooking to avoid the
    fat and cholesterol in regular eggs.  Sometimes, if the recipes calls
    for many eggs, or if I want some of that "eggy flavor", I'll use half
    real eggs and half Eggbeaters.
    
    I noticed on the package recently that the main ingredient in
    Eggbeaters is "99% real egg whites".  The remaining 1% seems to be corn
    oil, artificial color, stabilizers, preservatives, etc.
    
    So my question is - is there an advantage to using Eggbeaters over
    merely using egg whites (other than the color.)  Is there any egg
    flavor to Eggbeaters (I never use them straight, or in egg-based
    dishes such as souffle's) that isn't there in egg whites?
    
    I know that 3 egg whites is the volume equivalent of a large egg...even
    using 3 eggs whites (and throwing away the yolks) for every egg in a
    recipe is cheaper than using Eggbeaters, which are expensive.
    
    Also, is it possible to freeze eggs?  (Such as saving the yolks for
    other, more fattening, purposes?)
    
    Diana

    Off your track for a moment Diane - BTW, great questions.
    
    I bought a dozen Eggland's Best - these are specially 'grown' eggs
    with very litle cholesteral.  I have used them for holiday baking and
    for 2 batches of 'egg-in-a-hole' they look and taste like regular eggs
    just with greatly reduced cholesteral (and a bigger price tage about
    $1.79 for medium size eggs) and they have a cutsie EB stamped on them -
    I guess so you won't mix them up with your other eggs if you store them
    in a egg-holder in the 'fridge door.
    
    Joyce

    Are they lower in fat as well?
    
    Diana

Facsinating. Since Eggbeaters seems to be virtually all egg white,
you're surely right in guessing that you could just use egg white
instead. The corn oil will give it a slightly "eggy" flavor, so you
could add a small amount of that, too. And it will also help to replace
some of the fat that the yolks would have supplied. And yellow food
coloring (with a tough of red) is always a possibility if you need it
look right, too. Thanks for that very interesting bit of info.

Re freezing, I'm sure this has been discussed, but yes, you can freeze
egg whites (not sure for how long, though).

Re "low cholesterol eggs", are these real eggs from specially fed
chickens? Do they have yolks? As I understand it, egg yolk is pretty
much pure fat, virtually all of which is cholesterol. I'm real
skeptical that any real egg could legitimately be called low in
cholesterol. Do they have a nutritional analysis on the package?

    Yes, you can substitute egg whites for Eggbeaters.  It all comes down
    to how badly you feel about throwing away all of those egg yolks.

    RE: Egglands
    
    I heard or read that there is nothing especially different about these
    eggs (except the price!). I think the FCC or maybe the FDA? is trying
    to get them to change or stop their advertising.
    
    I'd be careful about assuming that these eggs are any more beneficial
    than any other egg...
    
    Joan

RE: .63

You certainly can freeze egg yolks for use later.  Julia Child recommends doing 
just that when a recipe calls for just egg whites.  This of course doesn't help 
if what you're trying to do is avoid the cholesterol--nearly all of it is in 
the egg yolks.

--PSW

You can use egg whites in place of egg beaters, but they are not as convenient.
You can freeze left over yolks as well as left over whites.
Egg beaters make better scrambled eggs/omelettes than just egg whites.

According to a consumer spot on channel 5, the Egglands Best eggs are nothing
special.  They tend to be fresher and higher in price, however, they contain
just about as much fat/cholesterol as cheap eggs.  They just decided to 
capitolize on the fact that there has been no absolute relationship between 
cholesterol in the diet and serum cholesterol.  Pretty sleazy if you ask me.
At least they were honest about these facts when they were interviewed by 
channel 5.  They admitted that egg sales have slumped in the past few years, 
and they were trying to boost sales.  COme to think of it, I have not seen 
another add for them on TV since channel 5 aired their report.  

    Ah huh, and your right .70 I haven't seen their commercial for a while.
    
    Joyce

    re: .70
    
    I didn't see the Channel 5 report, but I did see all those full-page
    newspaper ads that Eggland's Best ran a few weeks before Christmas. The
    ads claimed they fed their chickens some special diet which caused the
    eggs the chickens produced to have very low cholesterol. They even went
    so far as to tell you to have your doctor call them for more details if
    you were on a low-cholesterol diet. So this was all lies??
    
    Debbie
    

    	apparently...

> So this was all lies??

You're surprised?

    I vaguely recall that they said they raised the chickens on special 
    diets that produced eggs that do not have an effect on your cholesterol.
    Or some such meandering.  I do remember seeing the ad on TV and having
    to stop to think about the things they said.  The first time I heard
    the ad, I remember wondering about the amount of cholesterol in snake
    oil.

Sounds amazing, doesn't it?

Some relatively recent cholesterol research (mentioned elsewhere in
this conference, I think) found that while there are correlations
between cholesterol intake and blood cholesterol levels, there is no
conclusive evidence that *egg yolk* cholesterol has any such effect.
The studies (inconclusive, at last count) showed that there appeared to
be no correlation between egg consumption and blood cholesterol.

The hypothesis is now that blood cholesterol may be linked to some of
the other dietary cholesterols, but not eggs. However, none of this is
conclusive, because there are too many other factors which can't be
easily controlled in the studies. So *nobody* has any right to claim
yet that egg cholesterol is not linked to blood cholesterol. But lying
and misleading has been a hallmark of American advertising since the
beginning, so there's no precedent being set, here.

    But there is no question about egg yolks being loaded with *fat*, and
    those with cholesterol problems would do well to lower their fat intake
    (as would most people); therefore, if you are scrupulously watching
    cholesterol, Eggbeaters, or simply cutting down on the number of yolks
    you eat, makes good sense.
    
    D!

No, that's exactly what the studies have shown may not be true. They
show *no* correlation between egg consumption and blood cholesterol.

The implication is that there may be some additional forms of fat
(cholesterol is a fat) which do not contribute to cardiac risk. It is
already known that unsaturated vegetable fats are safer than was once
feared, and it now appears that the fats in eggs may not be a problem,
either, but it's too early to conclude this.

So yes, to be prudent, one should not go out and start consuming mass
quantities of eggs, but the studies have not indicated that reducing
egg consumption is beneficial.

RE: .78

Cholesterol is NOT a fat.  It is a lipid, yes, but not a fat.  Biochemically 
and metabolically, the distinction is extremely important.

My reading of this whole controversy is that the nutritional and medical 
communities simply don't know whether there is any direct correlation between 
dietary intake of cholesterol-containing foods and elevated levels of blood 
LDLs and cholesterol.  You probably do more damage to your body via 
extra stress and anxiety worrying about avoiding eggs.  The occasional egg or 
two in the diet is not going to hurt.

--PSW

    My take on the problem is that eggs are often combined with other
    really fatty foods, such as the classical Sunday breakfast with
    suasages, buttered toast - or rich sauces or desserts.

    As I've gotten older, I find that I don't like rich food as much
    since it leaves me feeling really sluggish.  But something like
    scrambled eggs without the sausage or butter laden toast don't
    make me feel that way.

    - Jim

    The controversy has just got muddier.
    
    The Lancet (some high brow and much respected medical journal in the
    UK) carried the results of a research project looking at the effect of
    cholesterol on depression.
    
    They found that men, especially older men, who have low levels (i.e.
    below normal - whatever that may be) of cholesterol (kept low by
    dieting or reduced cholesterol intake) are more likely to suffer from
    depression/anxiety (in some cases leading to suicide) than men who have
    normal levels of cholesterol.
    
    
    I think I average about an egg a week, and I don't even consider the
    cholesterol in it. Otherwise I go for a varied diet, a reasonable
    amount of everything: meat, vegetables, poultry, fish, loadsa potatoes
    and rice, loadsa garlic, mushrooms, and real English butter; but
    nothing in excess. Though I must say that fat/oil (apart from butter)
    has been very much reduced in our household, and we rarely have a 'fry
    up'.          
    
    Angus

Interesting...

Last nite, again on Channel 5 Boston, they did a follow up report on Eggland's
Best.  The company has volunteered to cooperate with the state's AG and not
advertise their cholesterol claims.  It appears that the study the company did
included 100 people on low fat diets.  Half of them ate EB eggs and the other
half ate no eggs.  The result was that the half that ate eggs showed no increase
in serum cholesterol.  They did not have any part of the group eat regular eggs,
however, so there is no way of telling from their data whether or not their
eggs are any better or worse than regular inexpensive eggs.

The eggs are still for sale, since they make no cholesterol related claims on 
the package.  They still believe their data is accurate, and it probably is.
They really were not lying, just marketing.  Digital does it all the time...

> ... just marketing.  Digital does it all the time...

Wishful thinking, JP ...

    re:.81
      I heard about that new study this morning on the news. My take on it
    is....when you're on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, you can't eat any
    of your favorite foods anymore (aren't all the good things "bad" for
    you?), so of course they're depressed!
    
    ;*)
    
    Debbie
    

Not true, Debbie,  you can still eat them, you just can't enjoy them!

    If you're freezing egg yolks, according to my best recollection of my
    freezer guide, you should mix them slightly and a tiny bit of salt per
    yolk.
    
    mj

    wow...a lot of egg knowledge in this file.

    I read all the replies and my question never came up.

    My kids like 'egg salad', so we buy and hard boil eggs a few times a week.
    It always seems like some eggs 'peel' real easily and others are
    very hard to peel.  (by peel, i mean the process of removing the shell
    from the hard boiled egg).

    Why is this?  What makes some eggs easy and others hard.  Is it a
    function of how fresh the eggs are?
    thanks
    bob

    I believe Bob, that "peelability" for eggs is a function of
    both age, type and exactly how they were cooked. 
    (My first job at 16 was 2 weeks in a place where eggs were sorted,
    boiled, peeled and pickled. My family still calls me the 
    eggspert!)
    
    Monica

 Bob-

 You can make it easier to peel your eggs by employing a simple technique.
Once the eggs are well chilled, place them one or two at a time in a large 
bowl of hot water. They only need to stay in the water for perhaps 20 seconds.
The shells will expand. Now gently crack the shells in the middle and roll
the eggs. The shells will come off in two pieces. (Most of the shell, most
of the time.) It really makes life easier, especially if the eggs are fully
chilled.

 The Doctah

As an (ex) keeper of hens (until a recent encounter with a fox - fox 16 hens 0)
I'd say the only way to we ever managed to get a hard boiled egg to peel well
was to make sure it was about five days old. Eaten any other way really fresh
eggs make store bought eggs come in a very poor second.

Alan

    The best deviled eggs I ever had (and now are the only ones I make)
    use only Marzetti's slaw dressing with the yolks.
    
    Finely chop the yolks and add enough Marzetti's slaw dressing (salad
    dressing isle of your grocery store with the other bottled dressings)
    to make a nice consistancy.  All done!
    
    Boy are they good!                    
    
    

    .92
    
    Where are you?    I love Marzetti's slaw dressing, but am unable to
    find it in Massachusetts?  If you are living in Mass, could you let me
    know where you find Marzetti's?
    
    Thanks,
    Sarah

    Hmmm.  didn't know Marzetti's was regional.  I'm in Ohio, sorry.
    
    /teri