Good day, our dear readers! Today I am starting with the outrageous news. The Daily Mail newspaper (dated March 30, 2020) reported that because of heightened demand for eggs as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, Britain has an anecdotal evidence of an increase in pet hens being stolen. This type of crime has become so widespread that the British Hen Welfare Trust gave a recommendation to take precautionary measures, remain vigilant and not to leave chickens unattended.
However, the behavior of these immoral citizens is somehow understandable and forgivable – what is a breakfast without soft-boiled or fried eggs… one cannot even call it a breakfast! But it is not a good reason to put our gastronomic interests higher than social ones, isn’t it?
So, I made a logical assumption: maybe it was not entirely a matter of culinary habits and possibly these British (and maybe their foreign “colleagues”) want to use eggs for completely other purposes? To strengthen the claim, there are a lot of precedents for such unusual and exotic eggs use.
For example:
Eggs as a “death notice”
From James Fraser “Golden Bough” (1890):
“…Many days’ journey to the north-east of Abomey, the old capital of Dahomey, lies the kingdom of Eyeo. The Eyeos are governed by a king, no less absolute than the king of Dahomey, yet subject to a regulation of state, at once humiliating and extraordinary. When the people have conceived an opinion of his ill-government, which is sometimes insidiously infused into them by the artifice of his discontented ministers, they send a deputation to him with a present of parrots’ eggs, as a mark of its authenticity, to represent to him that the burden of government must have so far fatigued him that they consider it full time for him to repose from his cares and indulge himself with a little sleep. He thanks his subjects for their attention to his ease, retires to his apartment as if to sleep, and there gives directions to his women to strangle him. This is immediately executed, and his son quietly ascends the throne upon the usual terms of holding the reins of government no longer than whilst the merits the approbation of the people.
About the year 1774, a king of Eyeo, whom his ministers attempted to remove in the customary manner, positively refused to accept the proffered parrots’ eggs at their hands, telling them that he had no mind to take a nap, but on the contrary was resolved to watch for the benefit of his subjects. The ministers, surprised and indignant at his recalcitrancy, raised a rebellion, but were defeated with great slaughter, and thus by his spirited conduct the king freed himself from the tyranny of his councilors and established a new precedent for the guidance of his successors. However, the old custom seems to have revived and persisted until late in the nineteenth century…”
Eggs as a building material
Perhaps one of the most famous tales from the history of bridge constructions. The story says that during the construction of the Charles Bridge over the Vltava (Prague, Czech Republic), eggs were added to the mortar. By the royal order, thousands of eggs were brought to Prague from the most remote corners of the state. Some inhabitants were so “prudent” that they cooked them to hard-boiled (of course, after this incident, the whole country laughed at these originals). Some other citizens decided that the mortar should be prepared on milk’s basis and gallons of milk were sent to Prague. Unfortunately (or not), the milk they sent turned sour on the road, and was used to prepare various goodies… However, the modern restorers really found traces of dairy products (but not eggs) in the foundation of the Charles Bridge. In addition, traces of beer, sugar, bovine blood and bile were also distinguished in the mortar.
Eggs as sports equipment
The book of Günter Linde and Heinz Knobloch “Guten Appetit. Eine Weltreise mit Messer und Gabel” (1967) describes a curious Scottish tradition. On Easter, children go from house to house and collect eggs. Then they find some slide and arrange a sportive competition: whose egg rolls to a longer distance without breaking. Those eggs that for some reason resisted and did not roll, the children ate immediately.
Eggs as an instrument of very gentle psychology
In “The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas” (1933), Gertrude Stein dedicated a few sentences to her cook Hellen: “…She was one of those admirable bonnes in other words excellent maids of all work, good cooks thoroughly occupied with the welfare of their employers and of themselves, firmly convinced that everything purchasable was far too dear. Oh but it is dear, was her answer to any question. She wasted nothing and carried on the household at the regular rate of eight francs a day… Hélène had her opinions, she did not for instance like Matisse (famous Henri Matisse). She said a frenchman should not stay unexpectedly to a meal particularly if he asked the servant beforehand what there was for dinner. She said foreigners had a perfect right to do these things but not a frenchman and Matisse had once done it. So when Miss Stein said to her, Monsieur Matisse is staying for dinner this evening, she would say, in that case I will not make an omelette but fry the eggs. It takes the same number of eggs and the same amount of butter but it shows less respect, and he will understand…”
For our young readers, of course, we should remind the reason for the constant military clashes between the two super-armies of Lilliput and Blefuscu. So, as a conclusion, I strongly recommend that all our readers break eggs exclusively from the convenient end. And please do not steal eggs and chickens!
Featured Image by Pexels from Pixabay.