The Egg and I and You and the Little Red Hen

 Let’s talk about eggs for a minute. I’ll try to be brief, since this is one of my favorite subjects, and once I clamber onto my soapbox I can go on for a long time. With age and aches creeping up on me, it’s not so easy to get down from that box so I’ll be careful.

 If you have noticed, eggs have been absolved from health iissues. They are no more guilty of adding cholesterol to your system than is lettuce. It all depends on your genes .Why? Well, you have to understand the function of an egg a bit.

Within a hen’s body, the future eggs develop gradually, starting with a pin-head sized yolk. The yolks, suspended in the hen’s body like a cluster of grapes at the top of the oviduct, develop and increase in size gradually, so there will be a constant stream of fully developed eggs being laid. When a yolk reaches optimum size, it breaks free of the little sac of tissue that has been holding it, and starts its journey down the oviduct. 

At this point, it can be fertilized, with sperm deposited in the blastodisc (which, when fertilized, is called the blastoderm). That is thick spot on the yolk, which you can usually find by examining the yolk when the egg is broken over a saucer. If you don’t see it, place another saucer rim-to-rim on top of the first, and flip it over to examine the other side of the yolk.) You can tell if an egg has been fertilized only after it has been incubated for a short time, when bloody veins spread across it. If you find little blobs of gray-colored stuff in your egg, it’s only a drop of blood released when the yolk broke free at the start of this journey.

If you have wondered what the little white strings on the sides of a yolk might be, they are chelaza: spiral membranes that attach to a thin membrane at the top and bottom of the egg, and hold the yolk in the center of the egg while it continues to develop. It spirals down the oviduct, with the white (albumin) forming around it until in the final steps, the shell is formed around the whole business, and the egg is laid. 

So what is the albumin (egg white)? It’s a protective fluid formed around the yolk to protect it while the egg is developing. Albumin is about 90% water, with the other ten percent a mixture of proteins. Think of it basically as functioning like amniotic fluid. (Gotta love those egg whites!) Egg white is quite useful when whipped into foam for meringue, for example, or it is also used to make glair, a binder for paints with many industrial uses, and also used in apply gold to manuscripts.  
 

The yolk, on the other hand, provides most of the nutrients for the developing chick. A chicken egg is ready to hatch after about 21 days of incubation. Think what a powerhouse that yolk needs to be! Three weeks – and a golden glob becomes a live chick with feet, eyes, blood, bones, feathers, and all the other features we expect.  

So when eating an egg, 90 percent of the nutritious stuff comes from that yolk. Nutrition or uterine fluid – what will it be? 

BUYING EGGS: 

I try to buy free-range eggs from local farmers when I can. They are likely to be fresher than eggs kept in lockers in stores. Free-range hens have natural lives and the opportunity to consume bugs, minerals, and other material from the soil. There is no happier sound than a hen cruising through spring grass, sort of humming to herself in contentment as the sun warms her back. Ahhhh….. As well, her eggs are going to be fully nutritious as she picks up proteins and minerals from the ground. Her eggs will have strong shells and will store longer, too.  

Terms such as “cage free” and “nest free” simply mean that they are allowed out of cages, but not necessarily outside. Not as good as the above, but not as bad as battery hens, crammed into cages three to a cage, unable to move around much, the ends of their beaks cut off so that they don’t peck each other in frustration, their optimum feed ration doled out automatically each day. (Feed to product ratios are studied and applied to determine the highest yield per unit, hence the most profit – one reason that smaller hens, such as Leghorns, are used for egg laying. Same goes for broiler fryers, and we don’t want to think about how they are raised commercially.) Needless to say, battery hens are highly stressed and, although I have no proof of this, I suspect that their anguish and maddened frustration may release hormones or chemicals into their eggs that we don’t want to consume. At the very least, it is inhumane to support this kind of business. 

A “vegetarian-fed” hen can never be free-ranging. It’s unnatural, like trying to raise a vegetarian dog. It just does not make sense.

OK, enough of that.

When purchasing a carton of eggs at a grocery store, make sure that all the eggs are in the carton point down. Eggs used to be sorted and packaged by hand, with care to place them point down. I’m pretty sure that most egg producers do this automatically with machines now, since so many eggs appear with points up in cartons. The problem is that many eggs these days are almost equally round on both ends and can fool machines. The human eye can tell the difference, though. The eggs to the right apper to be upside down!

                                                                                          
How the egg is stored in the carton is important. The “fat” end of the egg contains an air pocket. As the egg deteriorates it releases moisture through the shell, and this air pocket forms between the shell and the membrane. The larger the air pocket, the older the egg, or if it breaks down the egg deteriorate faster. You know what it’s like to break an egg and have it slop out of the shell flat and runny. A fresh, properly stored egg from well-fed hens will stand right up in half-round position in the middle of the white.  

You can hold the egg to a strong light and actually see the air pocket on the end. Not that you could do this in a store, but if you are curious, give it a try at home. 

Thin, brittle shells are also a sign of poor nutrition. A hen needs lots of calcium, either from grazing the ground or from an additional calcium source – traditionally crushed oyster shell or even egg shells. Some feeds include calcium using a “scientific formula,” but I think it’s nicer to let a hen decide for herself what she needs. Her own body informs her when something is lacking.  

So – employ some common sense (whole eggs are nutritious) and some compassion (use free range eggs when possible, cage-free otherwise) and enjoy your eggs! I have one for breakfast just about every day. Unlike carbohydrates or less easily digested proteins, an egg can get me through to even a late lunch without growling (physically or mentally).

Some Intentions, plus a Chinese Omelet

With Pride From Oregon

Chinese Omelet, or something like that...

I don’t intend to cater to diets, fads, gourmet food preparation. While I like to talk about kitchen tools – sometimes unusual ones – it’s often a matter of reassigning unexpected tasks to simple tools, or describing some of my favorites, some of which fall into the categories of “ethnic” or “antique”.

This should never have
happened to asaparagus!

I will be talking about foods, food history, everyday cooking (with and without recipes), condiments and spices, food ephemera , some food stories and memories, possibly some food fiction and art, and some blatantly subjective preferences, reviews, and remarks. Not to mention what I hope will pass as humor.

A rather suggestive title
for a Jell-O booklet!

I like to read cookbooks, but rarely stick to a recipe (except for baking: baking is chemistry and I don’t mess with the recipes much –except to add or change an exchangeable ingredient or flavoring). When I do share recipes they are often based on common sense rather than strict measures or ingredients.

Take today’s lunch, for example. My impetus was to use up the last of some fresh bean sprouts. We had already had sprouts in stir fries, salads, and sandwiches (I bought this enormous bag of the suckers at the Asian market, since they only come in a big bag. One-pound? Lots of sprouts, whatever. Tip: blanche them in boiling water for about 30 seconds, immerse immediately into very cold water, and they’ll keep for several days in the fridge. Tip, part 2: I just pour the hot sprouts into a large sieve or colander and shake and toss it under cold running water until they are cold.)

So for lunch I decided to make something akin to eggs foo young, but I didn’t want to mess with making little pancakes. So I made my mixture by cracking two fresh eggs (from local pasture-raised chickens) into a bowl, added about a couple of shots of soy sauce (a little more than a tablespoonful, but to taste) a dash of toasted sesame oil (to taste) and a tablespoonful or so of flour, just enough to thicken the batter a bit. Beat that together, then added chopped sprouts, chopped green onions (three or four average size, with green tops), a dash of pepper. Hold off on the salt, the soy sauce is probably enough. Heat a 10” skillet on a stovetop burner, add some peanut oil (about 2T) when hot, let the oil heat, shake it around to coat the bottom of the pan evenly, and pour in the mixture. Let it brown nicely on one side then flip (OK, I flipped in two halves) and cook on the other side just until the eggs are set.

Spousal review, “Mmmmm, that’s good. Still nice and crunchy.” (He uses an epicurean scale based mostly on crunch.)

Of course you can add to this for a large cake, or make two. Use a smaller pan for a one-egg omelet.

An Excellent Book on Culinary Ephemera