Quote:
You can actually dry an egg. Put it someplace dry, and the moisture will gradually exit leaving you with the shell and dehydrated contents. Yes it really works. No they don't spoil unless the egg is damaged.
My mother was infamous for this in the small circle of my friends when I was growing up. Right after I was born, she was involved in giving a baby shower for a friend of hers. For the centerpiece, she obtained a fresh goose egg and painted a "question mark" using pink and blue dots on the egg. (Because in those long-ago days, for you young'uns, the sex of the unborn child was *always* unknown--you weren't being an adventure-loving free spirited rebel to refuse to find out...) Anyway, a more prudent person might have blown the egg before decorating it. Not my mom. She just set the whole egg on the table as the centerpiece. Then after the shower, she tried to give the egg to her friend, the mother-to-be. Well, Mrs. Mellish was a little more practical than my mother and she (gracefully, I'm sure) declined to accept this ticking time bomb (which my mother clearly expected she would want to treasure forever).
So my mom was a lifelong hoarder (something I have tendencies toward myself but do recognize). That goose egg went into the door of our fridge. And stayed there for decades. Literally decades. This is why I know that the contents of an egg will dehydrate. You could pick up that goose egg and hear the yolk/white rolling around inside of it like a hard little nut. My friends would come over and marvel at this thing. (Not marvel in an admiring way. Oh no. More a delightedly horrified way, shuddering and laughing). (Did I mention I grew up in a very small town? The Egg was a big draw there). (The tour could then continue on to the many jars of soap slivers on the windowsills and the stacks of old newspapers taller than any kid in the house).
The famous egg's most fascinated and least disgusted frequent viewer was my friend Margaret, who was originally the baby that the pink-and-blue dots were painted for. She would always come over and ask to see "her egg." My mom several times tried to give it to her, but Margaret always declined. I am sure her mother had something to do with that... or maybe her sense of normality.
I am not entirely certain as to the fate of that egg. Sometime in the years after I moved out of the house and out of the state, I believe the story is that the egg finally cracked. My mom kept it. Then it cracked some more. Ditto. Someone else I'm sure finally spirited it out of the refrigerator because I can't believe my mother would have given up on it. She always said, "Oh, I'm keeping that for Margaret. Someday she'll want it." No one ever wanted the jars full of soap slivers, either...
Yet my mother saw people very clearly and saw the true good in so many kids who my brother and I knew, who most everyone else wrote off as bad influences and trouble makers. She didn't have much use for goody-two-shoes fakers but she could sense a good heart in a second--and she was a second mom to a few kids who barely had a first mom. (Don't want to go out on a mom-bashing note by any means, she was complicated but she did a lot of good in this world...)
I've accidentally dried out an egg too! My female sun conure Peaches laid a clutch of eggs last year (infertile of course!). Sun conure eggs are small, smaller than quail eggs. I got distracted after showing my mom one of them and put it in a sunny windowsill. Thankfully, instead of having to clean up a mini stink bomb, the insides dried out completely within a few days and it felt nearly weightless upon rediscovery!
You can actually dry an egg. Put it someplace dry, and the moisture will gradually exit leaving you with the shell and dehydrated contents. Yes it really works. No they don't spoil unless the egg is damaged.
My mother was infamous for this in the small circle of my friends when I was growing up. Right after I was born, she was involved in giving a baby shower for a friend of hers. For the centerpiece, she obtained a fresh goose egg and painted a "question mark" using pink and blue dots on the egg. (Because in those long-ago days, for you young'uns, the sex of the unborn child was *always* unknown--you weren't being an adventure-loving free spirited rebel to refuse to find out...) Anyway, a more prudent person might have blown the egg before decorating it. Not my mom. She just set the whole egg on the table as the centerpiece. Then after the shower, she tried to give the egg to her friend, the mother-to-be. Well, Mrs. Mellish was a little more practical than my mother and she (gracefully, I'm sure) declined to accept this ticking time bomb (which my mother clearly expected she would want to treasure forever).
So my mom was a lifelong hoarder (something I have tendencies toward myself but do recognize). That goose egg went into the door of our fridge. And stayed there for decades. Literally decades. This is why I know that the contents of an egg will dehydrate. You could pick up that goose egg and hear the yolk/white rolling around inside of it like a hard little nut. My friends would come over and marvel at this thing. (Not marvel in an admiring way. Oh no. More a delightedly horrified way, shuddering and laughing). (Did I mention I grew up in a very small town? The Egg was a big draw there). (The tour could then continue on to the many jars of soap slivers on the windowsills and the stacks of old newspapers taller than any kid in the house).
The famous egg's most fascinated and least disgusted frequent viewer was my friend Margaret, who was originally the baby that the pink-and-blue dots were painted for. She would always come over and ask to see "her egg." My mom several times tried to give it to her, but Margaret always declined. I am sure her mother had something to do with that... or maybe her sense of normality.
I am not entirely certain as to the fate of that egg. Sometime in the years after I moved out of the house and out of the state, I believe the story is that the egg finally cracked. My mom kept it. Then it cracked some more. Ditto. Someone else I'm sure finally spirited it out of the refrigerator because I can't believe my mother would have given up on it. She always said, "Oh, I'm keeping that for Margaret. Someday she'll want it." No one ever wanted the jars full of soap slivers, either...
Yet my mother saw people very clearly and saw the true good in so many kids who my brother and I knew, who most everyone else wrote off as bad influences and trouble makers. She didn't have much use for goody-two-shoes fakers but she could sense a good heart in a second--and she was a second mom to a few kids who barely had a first mom. (Don't want to go out on a mom-bashing note by any means, she was complicated but she did a lot of good in this world...)
I've accidentally dried out an egg too! My female sun conure Peaches laid a clutch of eggs last year (infertile of course!). Sun conure eggs are small, smaller than quail eggs. I got distracted after showing my mom one of them and put it in a sunny windowsill. Thankfully, instead of having to clean up a mini stink bomb, the insides dried out completely within a few days and it felt nearly weightless upon rediscovery!
