February 20, 2025 • 21 mins
With the rising cost of eggs, Eva and Maite decided to dive into the history of one of the most versatile kitchen staples. Who ate eggs first? When did the chicken become domesticated? Why are eggs sold by the dozen? Why are some eggs blue? Learn that and more!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A wabble. That's one of my favorite sayings.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Me too, it makes me what you mean?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Job, tell the people what it means.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It means fuck yeah, hell yeah. Ah well ah Webb.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
My name is Evil Longoria and I am and welcome
to Hungry for History, a podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So make yourself at home.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This episode is for you, Eva, this is your episode. Well,
you love eggs.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I do love eggs. I do love eggs. I forget
You're not an egg eater.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm not a nagg eater.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well you're the one that said you called me and
you go, should we do an episode on eggs because
of the draw that's happening exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, my words were, is it crazy? Or should we
do an episode on eggs?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And then I said, oh, well, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It is it is. You know, it's so of the
topic right now because people eggs are i mean insanely
expensive and people are blaming it on the on the bird.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Flu since January. But do you think that's it? What
is the reason why eggs are skyrocketing right now. Is
it just the bird flu?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's the bird flu. Yeah, it's the bird flu. And
so nearly twenty three million birds have been infected with
the bird flu since January. So it's a strain of
flu of bird flu that's been around since twenty twenty two,
and it has infected a lot of wild birds. So
these wild birds fly over poultry flocks and they pee
(01:52):
and they poop and they infect poultry and they either die.
But if you're a farmer, you have to kill the poultry.
And so these as these farms depopulate, they don't have
laying hens.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So it's decimating The bird flu is decimating chicken populations
right now.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Exactly exactly. And this is why eggs are so ridiculously expensive.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, they're also the bird flu is also affecting dairy cows. Yes,
So you know what's so crazy?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I didn't know. I drink raw milk as much as
I can. I do.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I do. I like it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I just think it's it's great and it's.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Good for you. I I could be wrong, but once
this thing came out, I was like, well, I gotta
stop drinking wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Where do you get it?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
My friend jesse Garcia brings it to me because he
goes to a farm outside of LA and he'll bring
it to me. And it only lasts five days, you
know what I mean. It's because it's not pasteurized.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So and do you drink the milk or do you
make not that?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
No? No, I use it like I use it in cooking, Okay,
in my in my coffee, I've been making my coffee
creamer from scratch.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Instead of the trad wife, I'm a progressive trad wife.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
You make bread, you make butter, Now you make your own.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Mad I make my mayonnaise. I know you might like
my homemade mayonnaise. I make my mayonnaise. Of course, I've
always made all my dressings. But I make my sandwich bread,
I make baguettes, I make my butter, I make our mayonnaise.
And now I've been making my coffee creamer because holy crap,
all the stuff that's in that coffee creamer is no bueno.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, no, it's a lot of preserved But don't do it.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Don't don't drink raw milk now, because this virus is
also reducing the milk output and cattle totally.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I went to the grocery store yesterday and the
eggs were outrageous, But then it was just one one dozen.
There were customer they were limiting, but they didn't have
any and they didn't have that much milk either, and
so yes, So.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Now I know a lot of people voted for Trump
because they thought he would bring down these prices, but
this administration has pretty much been silent on it. And
why is the CDC not allowed to put up studies
on the bird flu?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, because they're limiting the CDC and it's bad for business,
so they say that they're bad for business, So it's horrible.
The the Biden administration put in place a national milk
testing strategy in December, so which tells you where the virus,
you know, is, but you can't really control it unless
you know where it is. And if the CDC isn't
(04:34):
really putting anything out, or is it allowed to put
anything out, you know, it's really hard to control it.
And it takes months to produce replacement eggs and make
it to the grocery store shelves. So it's been it's
going to be I think it's going to be a while.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, it's going to be a minute.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's going to be a minute, so best to avoid
raw cookie dough and raw cake battery.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, we'll cook your eggs thoroughly, cook your eggs thoroughly.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Well, when we come back, I want to know when
we started eating eggs, because I do think it's weird.
I love eggs, but I do think it's weird. You're
gonna love this part.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Don't go anywhere. So humans have been consuming eggs around
the world since the dawn of time.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It is kind of a really thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But yeah, but people, you know, different kinds of eggs
were and are still being eaten. You know, different parts
of the world. Birds and reptiles lay eggs. So in
mes America, prespanic cultures ate turkey eggs, duck eggs, iguana eggs.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Do they scramble up the same way like.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
You just I guess, I mean it's an egg, so
it's but reptiles as well, Yeah they lay eggs. Wow,
wow right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, ancient Romans ate eggs as well, Chinese ate pigeon eggs,
Japanese ate quail eggs, and then turtle egg eggs were
once highly prized.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Alligator eggs, but now it's the chicken egg the chicken.
Egg is the most common.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yes, and even you know baking, I mean, eggs are
so you know, even though I'm not an egg eater,
I did taste the eggs that you made egg once
and I had a little bit of it. But I mean,
even though I don't eat them, you cook with them
all the time for baking and just really, you know,
(06:29):
you use them for everything. So baking even is an
ancient practice. That the ancient Egyptian and the ancient Romans
used eggs in baking breads and in baking you know, cakes.
But the first domesticated fowl reached North America in fourteen
ninety three with Columbus's second voyage.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
People were eating all kinds of eggs, But when did
we start domesticating chickens.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So this the chicken is bread. It's an interesting animal.
It's bread for both it's meat and it's eggs. And
it's thought to have originally been domesticated from a red
jungle fowl. So this is a sort of wild bird
native to multiple regions from Southeast Asia to southwest China.
(07:15):
But chicken domestication was previously considered to have happened in
the Indus Valley around two thousand BC, or perhaps you
know earlier, there's evidence that maybe went back to Southeast
Asia around six thousand BC. Chickens were initially used for
rituals and to proclaim the hour of dawn, and then
(07:37):
later sort of cockfighting and pep breeds were produced and
raised around the globe. But commercial chicken breeds have been
bred over the last one hundred years, so not really
that long through selective mating of various indigenous breeds. So
it's among the first animal brought to the Americas by colonizers,
and in the mid eighteenth century we started seeing the
(07:59):
development and if chicken breeds specifically for the task to
produce eggs in the US.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
So yeah, the egg actually symbolizes different things in different cultures.
It always represented life because obviously it's like the inception
of life, but also early myth makers thought, you know,
it was the sun as the egg was like, you know, yellow,
it had a yellow yolk. There's so many legends that
fairies consumed eggs of mythical birds like the phoenix, and
(08:29):
then in Slavic and Germanic lands, people smeared their hose
with eggs and hopes of transferring the eggs, fertility to
the soil, and there's just so much that that eggs
are symbolic for fertility in France, and so I just
find that so interesting, Like I feel like we shouldn't
(08:51):
eat eggs. It does symbolize all this like mythical legend,
beautiful things, And I'm like, why are we eating them?
But we do?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And I do.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We should to ingest that magic, right?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Are we ingesting the magic?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
When we were recording Season one, I had a chance
to visit Eva in Spain and she fried some eggs
in a ton of Spanish olive oil for her husband.
I have an aversion to the smell of eggs, but
the fruity olive oil made the eggs actually smell good.
And I've been making what I call the Eva eggs
for my husband ever since.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Are you ready record my my egg going in? All right?
So how hot do you get it?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Because you want to olive oil to burn.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You want it hot. That's a lot of oil. So
that's a lot of wealth.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, do you serve it with the old with its
swimming and the oil up to dump bread in?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, for toast for your toast. There we go. Once
it starts doing that off.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
The French way I think is you pour a little
water in there and it goesh, and that's what steams
the top of the egg. But in Spain they don't
do Look at that. See those crispy edges. You want
the crispy edges, but you want to loose.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yolk, you know, so you keep it really running on
that inside. Yeah, that lights it running. You gotta put
the salt right away for adhesive properties.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, pepper, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I put pepper on pippus. Yeah, I usually put chili flakes.
All right, let's get it a little bit hotter. Okay,
here we go. Second egg. All right, that's so interesting.
We want it to bubble on top. You want it
to all bubble up. So I just throw the oil
on top because it's super hot. Cover it for like
(10:36):
two seconds. That starts to pop. You turn it off.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Are you trying to keet off completely off? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You like Dude's things. I probably will do it a
little bit more well done.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I mean crisp beer, because it could get it could
get a lot crispier. I'm gonna get it really hot
this time. Let's try it even hotter.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So they have all of the flavor of I mean,
I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I mean it's just soak and all. Look at this.
Oh my gosh, I'm gonna burn this one. Not burned,
but like super crispy.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So then it has the texture of the crispiness and
that on the bottom.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I love that address that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's such a cool visual, the kind of bubbles.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
M h.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I love this over the yolk. Yeah, it's so cool looking.
And then that's really chrispy. I could see the brown bit. Yeah,
gotta like when it's burnt like that. Okay, this is
let me get them and we have an avocado to
put a little red chili flakes on his eggs. Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Did you know this? The color of an egg shell
corresponds to the color of the hen's ear lobes.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
What what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Where's the ear lobe? By the way, they have like
a little tiny ear lobe. No they don't, you know,
they have like a little a little tiny piece of skin.
And the color of the eggshell correspond.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Because sometimes there's blue eggs and pink eggs, you know. Yeah,
beautiful colors. All right, Well we got that in more
fun facts after the break. What are eggs sold by
the dozen. That's so funny. I've never really asked myself
(12:19):
this question.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Is it a mystery or do we know? We kind
of know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean, it's sort of half half and half mystery.
So there's a system that came to be known as
English units, which was a combination of old Anglo Saxon
and Roman systems of measurement. And back then eggs were
sold by the dozen, so one egg could be sold
for a penny, or twelve for a shilling, which was
equal to twelve pennies. So this system traveled to the
(12:44):
American colonies and it persisted, and so in the days
of industrial food packaging, it was more practical to sell
eggs in an even number. And the number twelve is
divisible by two, three, and four, which makes it easier
to give change, which is just kind of cool. So
it's just basically it's just easier. So most parts of
the world, eggs are sold by the dozen or half dozen,
(13:08):
but in some countries they they could sell them by
eights or tens, and in parts of India and Africa
you could buy, like us, eggs buy the piece. I've
never seen eggs by the piece. I always have seen
it in half dozen.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I've seen in Spain they have it by like six.
You can do it, okay, the half yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
The half dozen. Yeah, but it's just easier to give
change because the number twelve is divisible.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, what is the what where does the word egg
or wibble come from?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So the word webbel comes from the Latin ovum and
the word egg is dates to prehistoric language Indo European
source related to the word for bird. So the old
English term was egg oeg almost egg o egg oh
(13:59):
egg which meant bird, which meant bird.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
And then here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
I just actually saw a TikTok on this. But like
in Spain, we don't refrigerate our eggs. They're not refrigerated
at the store and when I bring them home there
in the pantry. But in the United States we refrigerate them.
So why do some countries have it on the shelf
and some like the US, are always refrigerated. I think
(14:26):
it's really only the US that has it refrigerated. Most
countries just have it on the shelf. Well, what I
saw was it has to do with the pores and
how also the pores on an eggshell, and also the
travel time of transportation, and people forget how big the.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
United States is and so Europe.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It's like from the farm to the market to your
house is substantially a smaller travel time.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
The eggshell has as many as seventeen thousand pores.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Crazy, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. That's why they're so hard
to color at Easter.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh really, I guess it's your delight to really yeah,
really can get a little some diet. So in the US,
soon after the eggs pop out of the chicken, producers
put them in a machine at shampoos them with soap
and hot water, and this compromises the egg by washing
away this this barely visible coating that envelopes them, so
(15:27):
it's very very barely visible. But this coating keeps water
and oxygen in and bacteria out. So by washing them
this increases the chances for infection. So that's why they
need to be kept refrigerating. And also other countries, egg
laying hens are vaccinated against salmonella, and so they keep
(15:49):
the eggs on the shelf.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
By the way, milk as well. In Spain, we don't
refrigerate until it's open. Oh really yeah, oh interesting. Milk
is also not now here there's another thing that I
got really mad at with beef right when it's like
grass fed, range free, Like when I buy my beef,
I'm like, why is this main?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I am equally confused.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
With egg cartons when it's like cage free, free range,
pasture raised, Like what does what do these labels mean?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What is cage free? I mean I'm assuming that they're
not a cage.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Cage free is this term regulated by the USDA. It
means that the eggs come from hens that aren't caged.
But this doesn't mean that they freely, you know, roam around. Right,
They're in a cage that's about eight and half by
eleven the size of a piece of paper, and so
that's basically you know where they are. So according to
(16:47):
this book All about Eggs by Rachel Kong, cage free
facilities have more hand on hand violence and lower air
quality than facilities that use cages. And then there's free range,
which is another USDA term meaning that eggs comes from
hens that are have some sort of access to the outdoors.
(17:08):
But it also doesn't mean that they can actually go outdoors.
It just means that there is a little bit of
outdoor space. A door exists, if the farmer wants to
open it at some point, that's it. And then pasture
raised is a term not regulated by the USDA. But
if the egg carton says that the eggs have been
(17:31):
pasture raised or stamps that say certified humane or animal
welfare approved, it means that each hen is given one
hundred and eight square feet of outdoor space and some
barn space indoors. So this is close to this kind
of farm vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That that can exist.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So the sort of kinder eggs and also the most
expensive eggs are the pasture raised plus your eggs. Since
you grew up on a farm, did you have a
chicken cook Yeah, oh yeah we had. We had chicken cope.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I had to.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That was one of my chores was I had to
let the chickens out in the morning. I had to
gather them at night. We had to go get the eggs.
Some were mean, some would pick at you, some were
some were like my pets. I always had baby chicki's
in my bed bay always they were all over my bed,
my room. I grew up with a pig in the house,
I mean yeah. And our eggs were blue and pink
(18:30):
and they were always different. But you know, it's so
funny because they would always lay what we needed. We
didn't have like an abundance. We didn't never didn't have
egg like it was just the perfect amount that we
always had. I love I love, I love it all eggs.
I love a boiled egg. I love scrambled eggs. I
like egg whites. I'm a big egg white person. I
(18:52):
don't like poached eggs. And it's funny because I like vinegar,
but I don't like the vinegary taste and I don't
like the texture that the vinegar puts around.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
A poached egg. So if I have avacado toast, I'm
like put a fried egg on it. I love eggs
in Spain.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Because of the olive oil, and there's a specific way
that they make eggs. They put it on very very
very high heat and like a really large amount of
olive oil and they throw the egg in there and
it goesh. So the egg the edges are so crispy,
but the yolk is still runny, and as soon as
it's in the pan, they turn it off, and so
(19:30):
it's just like they do it the best.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
They make the best fried eggs.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I remember when I visited you in Spain last year.
You made those eggs for Pepe. Yeah, and they were
beautiful with all the oil. I've made them for Dave,
for my husband, and he's just like, it's like the
eve eggs.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Well, I'm a big fan of eggs, and I hope
this bird flu thing goes away soon.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Like, where's the end. I don't see the end, insights,
I don't see the end.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I think it's going to be a while. But I
think that people should just keep aware of what's happening
and cook your eggs well and don't eat raw cake
batter and raw milk.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Don't do any of it. So wait, well, Mitha, will
you become an egg eater after this? Probably not, huh.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I feel like this almost tears us from eating.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It totally, although you just reinforced your reason of not
to eat it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, I've never I've always had this aversion to the
smell and the texture, and it's just although lately I've
been I do this egg, I'll scramble it and make
like a little omelet, and then I'll put gessore and
and that I can eat because it has sauce and
it has some sort of flavor. But but for the
(20:44):
most part you know no. But thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Don't forget to rate us, leave us your messages. We
love hearing from you guys, right might they We do?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Hungary for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A wabble. That's one of my favorite sayings.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Me too, it makes me what you mean?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Job, tell the people what it means.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It means fuck yeah, hell yeah. Ah well ah Webb.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
My name is Evil Longoria and I am and welcome
to Hungry for History, a podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So make yourself at home.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This episode is for you, Eva, this is your episode. Well,
you love eggs.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I do love eggs. I do love eggs. I forget
You're not an egg eater.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm not a nagg eater.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well you're the one that said you called me and
you go, should we do an episode on eggs because
of the draw that's happening exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, my words were, is it crazy? Or should we
do an episode on eggs?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And then I said, oh, well, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It is it is. You know, it's so of the
topic right now because people eggs are i mean insanely
expensive and people are blaming it on the on the bird.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Flu since January. But do you think that's it? What
is the reason why eggs are skyrocketing right now. Is
it just the bird flu?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's the bird flu. Yeah, it's the bird flu. And
so nearly twenty three million birds have been infected with
the bird flu since January. So it's a strain of
flu of bird flu that's been around since twenty twenty two,
and it has infected a lot of wild birds. So
these wild birds fly over poultry flocks and they pee
(01:52):
and they poop and they infect poultry and they either die.
But if you're a farmer, you have to kill the poultry.
And so these as these farms depopulate, they don't have
laying hens.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So it's decimating The bird flu is decimating chicken populations
right now.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Exactly exactly. And this is why eggs are so ridiculously expensive.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, they're also the bird flu is also affecting dairy cows. Yes,
So you know what's so crazy?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I didn't know. I drink raw milk as much as
I can. I do.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I do. I like it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I just think it's it's great and it's.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Good for you. I I could be wrong, but once
this thing came out, I was like, well, I gotta
stop drinking wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Where do you get it?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
My friend jesse Garcia brings it to me because he
goes to a farm outside of LA and he'll bring
it to me. And it only lasts five days, you
know what I mean. It's because it's not pasteurized.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So and do you drink the milk or do you
make not that?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
No? No, I use it like I use it in cooking, Okay,
in my in my coffee, I've been making my coffee
creamer from scratch.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Instead of the trad wife, I'm a progressive trad wife.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
You make bread, you make butter, Now you make your own.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Mad I make my mayonnaise. I know you might like
my homemade mayonnaise. I make my mayonnaise. Of course, I've
always made all my dressings. But I make my sandwich bread,
I make baguettes, I make my butter, I make our mayonnaise.
And now I've been making my coffee creamer because holy crap,
all the stuff that's in that coffee creamer is no bueno.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, no, it's a lot of preserved But don't do it.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Don't don't drink raw milk now, because this virus is
also reducing the milk output and cattle totally.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I went to the grocery store yesterday and the
eggs were outrageous, But then it was just one one dozen.
There were customer they were limiting, but they didn't have
any and they didn't have that much milk either, and
so yes, So.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Now I know a lot of people voted for Trump
because they thought he would bring down these prices, but
this administration has pretty much been silent on it. And
why is the CDC not allowed to put up studies
on the bird flu?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, because they're limiting the CDC and it's bad for business,
so they say that they're bad for business, So it's horrible.
The the Biden administration put in place a national milk
testing strategy in December, so which tells you where the virus,
you know, is, but you can't really control it unless
you know where it is. And if the CDC isn't
(04:34):
really putting anything out, or is it allowed to put
anything out, you know, it's really hard to control it.
And it takes months to produce replacement eggs and make
it to the grocery store shelves. So it's been it's
going to be I think it's going to be a while.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, it's going to be a minute.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's going to be a minute, so best to avoid
raw cookie dough and raw cake battery.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, we'll cook your eggs thoroughly, cook your eggs thoroughly.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Well, when we come back, I want to know when
we started eating eggs, because I do think it's weird.
I love eggs, but I do think it's weird. You're
gonna love this part.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Don't go anywhere. So humans have been consuming eggs around
the world since the dawn of time.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It is kind of a really thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But yeah, but people, you know, different kinds of eggs
were and are still being eaten. You know, different parts
of the world. Birds and reptiles lay eggs. So in
mes America, prespanic cultures ate turkey eggs, duck eggs, iguana eggs.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Do they scramble up the same way like.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
You just I guess, I mean it's an egg, so
it's but reptiles as well, Yeah they lay eggs. Wow,
wow right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, ancient Romans ate eggs as well, Chinese ate pigeon eggs,
Japanese ate quail eggs, and then turtle egg eggs were
once highly prized.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Alligator eggs, but now it's the chicken egg the chicken.
Egg is the most common.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yes, and even you know baking, I mean, eggs are
so you know, even though I'm not an egg eater,
I did taste the eggs that you made egg once
and I had a little bit of it. But I mean,
even though I don't eat them, you cook with them
all the time for baking and just really, you know,
(06:29):
you use them for everything. So baking even is an
ancient practice. That the ancient Egyptian and the ancient Romans
used eggs in baking breads and in baking you know, cakes.
But the first domesticated fowl reached North America in fourteen
ninety three with Columbus's second voyage.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
People were eating all kinds of eggs, But when did
we start domesticating chickens.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So this the chicken is bread. It's an interesting animal.
It's bread for both it's meat and it's eggs. And
it's thought to have originally been domesticated from a red
jungle fowl. So this is a sort of wild bird
native to multiple regions from Southeast Asia to southwest China.
(07:15):
But chicken domestication was previously considered to have happened in
the Indus Valley around two thousand BC, or perhaps you
know earlier, there's evidence that maybe went back to Southeast
Asia around six thousand BC. Chickens were initially used for
rituals and to proclaim the hour of dawn, and then
(07:37):
later sort of cockfighting and pep breeds were produced and
raised around the globe. But commercial chicken breeds have been
bred over the last one hundred years, so not really
that long through selective mating of various indigenous breeds. So
it's among the first animal brought to the Americas by colonizers,
and in the mid eighteenth century we started seeing the
(07:59):
development and if chicken breeds specifically for the task to
produce eggs in the US.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
So yeah, the egg actually symbolizes different things in different cultures.
It always represented life because obviously it's like the inception
of life, but also early myth makers thought, you know,
it was the sun as the egg was like, you know, yellow,
it had a yellow yolk. There's so many legends that
fairies consumed eggs of mythical birds like the phoenix, and
(08:29):
then in Slavic and Germanic lands, people smeared their hose
with eggs and hopes of transferring the eggs, fertility to
the soil, and there's just so much that that eggs
are symbolic for fertility in France, and so I just
find that so interesting, Like I feel like we shouldn't
(08:51):
eat eggs. It does symbolize all this like mythical legend,
beautiful things, And I'm like, why are we eating them?
But we do?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And I do.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We should to ingest that magic, right?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Are we ingesting the magic?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
When we were recording Season one, I had a chance
to visit Eva in Spain and she fried some eggs
in a ton of Spanish olive oil for her husband.
I have an aversion to the smell of eggs, but
the fruity olive oil made the eggs actually smell good.
And I've been making what I call the Eva eggs
for my husband ever since.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Are you ready record my my egg going in? All right?
So how hot do you get it?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Because you want to olive oil to burn.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You want it hot. That's a lot of oil. So
that's a lot of wealth.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, do you serve it with the old with its
swimming and the oil up to dump bread in?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, for toast for your toast. There we go. Once
it starts doing that off.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
The French way I think is you pour a little
water in there and it goesh, and that's what steams
the top of the egg. But in Spain they don't
do Look at that. See those crispy edges. You want
the crispy edges, but you want to loose.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yolk, you know, so you keep it really running on
that inside. Yeah, that lights it running. You gotta put
the salt right away for adhesive properties.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, pepper, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I put pepper on pippus. Yeah, I usually put chili flakes.
All right, let's get it a little bit hotter. Okay,
here we go. Second egg. All right, that's so interesting.
We want it to bubble on top. You want it
to all bubble up. So I just throw the oil
on top because it's super hot. Cover it for like
(10:36):
two seconds. That starts to pop. You turn it off.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Are you trying to keet off completely off? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You like Dude's things. I probably will do it a
little bit more well done.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I mean crisp beer, because it could get it could
get a lot crispier. I'm gonna get it really hot
this time. Let's try it even hotter.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So they have all of the flavor of I mean,
I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I mean it's just soak and all. Look at this.
Oh my gosh, I'm gonna burn this one. Not burned,
but like super crispy.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So then it has the texture of the crispiness and
that on the bottom.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I love that address that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's such a cool visual, the kind of bubbles.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
M h.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I love this over the yolk. Yeah, it's so cool looking.
And then that's really chrispy. I could see the brown bit. Yeah,
gotta like when it's burnt like that. Okay, this is
let me get them and we have an avocado to
put a little red chili flakes on his eggs. Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Did you know this? The color of an egg shell
corresponds to the color of the hen's ear lobes.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
What what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Where's the ear lobe? By the way, they have like
a little tiny ear lobe. No they don't, you know,
they have like a little a little tiny piece of skin.
And the color of the eggshell correspond.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Because sometimes there's blue eggs and pink eggs, you know. Yeah,
beautiful colors. All right, Well we got that in more
fun facts after the break. What are eggs sold by
the dozen. That's so funny. I've never really asked myself
(12:19):
this question.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Is it a mystery or do we know? We kind
of know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean, it's sort of half half and half mystery.
So there's a system that came to be known as
English units, which was a combination of old Anglo Saxon
and Roman systems of measurement. And back then eggs were
sold by the dozen, so one egg could be sold
for a penny, or twelve for a shilling, which was
equal to twelve pennies. So this system traveled to the
(12:44):
American colonies and it persisted, and so in the days
of industrial food packaging, it was more practical to sell
eggs in an even number. And the number twelve is
divisible by two, three, and four, which makes it easier
to give change, which is just kind of cool. So
it's just basically it's just easier. So most parts of
the world, eggs are sold by the dozen or half dozen,
(13:08):
but in some countries they they could sell them by
eights or tens, and in parts of India and Africa
you could buy, like us, eggs buy the piece. I've
never seen eggs by the piece. I always have seen
it in half dozen.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I've seen in Spain they have it by like six.
You can do it, okay, the half yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
The half dozen. Yeah, but it's just easier to give
change because the number twelve is divisible.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, what is the what where does the word egg
or wibble come from?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So the word webbel comes from the Latin ovum and
the word egg is dates to prehistoric language Indo European
source related to the word for bird. So the old
English term was egg oeg almost egg o egg oh
(13:59):
egg which meant bird, which meant bird.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
And then here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
I just actually saw a TikTok on this. But like
in Spain, we don't refrigerate our eggs. They're not refrigerated
at the store and when I bring them home there
in the pantry. But in the United States we refrigerate them.
So why do some countries have it on the shelf
and some like the US, are always refrigerated. I think
(14:26):
it's really only the US that has it refrigerated. Most
countries just have it on the shelf. Well, what I
saw was it has to do with the pores and
how also the pores on an eggshell, and also the
travel time of transportation, and people forget how big the.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
United States is and so Europe.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It's like from the farm to the market to your
house is substantially a smaller travel time.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
The eggshell has as many as seventeen thousand pores.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Crazy, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. That's why they're so hard
to color at Easter.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh really, I guess it's your delight to really yeah,
really can get a little some diet. So in the US,
soon after the eggs pop out of the chicken, producers
put them in a machine at shampoos them with soap
and hot water, and this compromises the egg by washing
away this this barely visible coating that envelopes them, so
(15:27):
it's very very barely visible. But this coating keeps water
and oxygen in and bacteria out. So by washing them
this increases the chances for infection. So that's why they
need to be kept refrigerating. And also other countries, egg
laying hens are vaccinated against salmonella, and so they keep
(15:49):
the eggs on the shelf.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
By the way, milk as well. In Spain, we don't
refrigerate until it's open. Oh really yeah, oh interesting. Milk
is also not now here there's another thing that I
got really mad at with beef right when it's like
grass fed, range free, Like when I buy my beef,
I'm like, why is this main?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I am equally confused.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
With egg cartons when it's like cage free, free range,
pasture raised, Like what does what do these labels mean?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What is cage free? I mean I'm assuming that they're
not a cage.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Cage free is this term regulated by the USDA. It
means that the eggs come from hens that aren't caged.
But this doesn't mean that they freely, you know, roam around. Right,
They're in a cage that's about eight and half by
eleven the size of a piece of paper, and so
that's basically you know where they are. So according to
(16:47):
this book All about Eggs by Rachel Kong, cage free
facilities have more hand on hand violence and lower air
quality than facilities that use cages. And then there's free range,
which is another USDA term meaning that eggs comes from
hens that are have some sort of access to the outdoors.
(17:08):
But it also doesn't mean that they can actually go outdoors.
It just means that there is a little bit of
outdoor space. A door exists, if the farmer wants to
open it at some point, that's it. And then pasture
raised is a term not regulated by the USDA. But
if the egg carton says that the eggs have been
(17:31):
pasture raised or stamps that say certified humane or animal
welfare approved, it means that each hen is given one
hundred and eight square feet of outdoor space and some
barn space indoors. So this is close to this kind
of farm vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That that can exist.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So the sort of kinder eggs and also the most
expensive eggs are the pasture raised plus your eggs. Since
you grew up on a farm, did you have a
chicken cook Yeah, oh yeah we had. We had chicken cope.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I had to.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That was one of my chores was I had to
let the chickens out in the morning. I had to
gather them at night. We had to go get the eggs.
Some were mean, some would pick at you, some were
some were like my pets. I always had baby chicki's
in my bed bay always they were all over my bed,
my room. I grew up with a pig in the house,
I mean yeah. And our eggs were blue and pink
(18:30):
and they were always different. But you know, it's so
funny because they would always lay what we needed. We
didn't have like an abundance. We didn't never didn't have
egg like it was just the perfect amount that we
always had. I love I love, I love it all eggs.
I love a boiled egg. I love scrambled eggs. I
like egg whites. I'm a big egg white person. I
(18:52):
don't like poached eggs. And it's funny because I like vinegar,
but I don't like the vinegary taste and I don't
like the texture that the vinegar puts around.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
A poached egg. So if I have avacado toast, I'm
like put a fried egg on it. I love eggs
in Spain.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Because of the olive oil, and there's a specific way
that they make eggs. They put it on very very
very high heat and like a really large amount of
olive oil and they throw the egg in there and
it goesh. So the egg the edges are so crispy,
but the yolk is still runny, and as soon as
it's in the pan, they turn it off, and so
(19:30):
it's just like they do it the best.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
They make the best fried eggs.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I remember when I visited you in Spain last year.
You made those eggs for Pepe. Yeah, and they were
beautiful with all the oil. I've made them for Dave,
for my husband, and he's just like, it's like the
eve eggs.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Well, I'm a big fan of eggs, and I hope
this bird flu thing goes away soon.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Like, where's the end. I don't see the end, insights,
I don't see the end.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I think it's going to be a while. But I
think that people should just keep aware of what's happening
and cook your eggs well and don't eat raw cake
batter and raw milk.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Don't do any of it. So wait, well, Mitha, will
you become an egg eater after this? Probably not, huh.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I feel like this almost tears us from eating.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It totally, although you just reinforced your reason of not
to eat it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, I've never I've always had this aversion to the
smell and the texture, and it's just although lately I've
been I do this egg, I'll scramble it and make
like a little omelet, and then I'll put gessore and
and that I can eat because it has sauce and
it has some sort of flavor. But but for the
(20:44):
most part you know no. But thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Don't forget to rate us, leave us your messages. We
love hearing from you guys, right might they We do?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Hungary for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.