In Macedonian local lore, if you share a birthday or even birth month with a dying relative, your days are also numbered. Cheating death can be achieved by sharing the yolk of an egg with this relative while standing on opposite sides of a stream.
In Mergentheim, Germany, if someone falls gravely ill, that person must tie a white thread around an egg and throw it into a fire. If the shell turns black, death is near.
In Morocco, a woman who has a very young son and is preparing to give birth again must keep an egg close to her during labor. After delivery, the egg is given to the older brother to ensure that the siblings will like each other. If the egg is eaten by someone other than the brother, the newborn baby will grow up to hate the mother.
Across Europe, eggs have been used to tell fortunes. This is usually done by piercing the shell and catching drops of the falling egg white in a glass of water. The shapes formed by the white are interpreted by an unmarried woman who is looking for clues to her future husband’s profession. A ship means a sailor, ect.
In rural Russia, eggs can help you become friends with supernatural forces. The house sprite, or spirit, sometimes takes the form of a snake. If a snake is seen around the house, it is good to offer some egg pancakes to it. If the gift is accepted, you have the loyalty of the sprite. If not, your house will burn down.
Occasionally, hens lay eggs with imperfect shells or eggs without shells at all. In England, such eggs are traditionally called “wind eggs” because it is believed that the hen had been impregnated by the wind instead of the rooster.
In parts of Hungary, if a black hen lays a soft-shelled egg, it is destroyed upon discovery, because it signifies terrible omens: The earth is softening beneath a member of the family, which is a metaphor of impending death.
Many cultures consider unusual eggs – misshapen, empty, yolkless, shell-less, or ones with the yolk and white mixed – to be laid by the rooster instead of the hen.
In 1474, legal proceedings were brought against a rooster accused of laying an egg for purposes of practicing witchcraft. The rooster was convicted as a sorcerer in the form of a bird and burned at the stake with his egg.
If you are stressed out at work, beset by bad luck, or missing a deceased relative, there is hope. In Jamaican culture, if you sneak into a church yard at night and offer an egg to the deceased, along with rice and rum, the ghost will accept the food and offer to help you and give you good luck.
The average chicken egg weighs about two ounces, or sixty grams.
Don’t know if an egg is good or bad? Drop it in water. If it sinks, it’s still fresh. If it floats, it is old and should not be eaten.
To avoid a situation faced by Ramona Quimby when she smashed a raw egg on her head, spin the egg on end. If it wobbles, it is raw. If it spins easily and smoothly, it is hard-boiled and is safe to crack on your head.
The color of the eggshell does not relate to its nutritional value. Red hens usually lay brown eggs, and white hens lay white eggs.
One hen can lay about 250 eggs in one year.
Older hens tend to lay larger eggs, but double-yolked eggs are produced by younger hens whose egg-laying cycles are not quite in sync yet.
The world’s largest chicken egg was laid in China in 2009. It was 6.3 centimeters wide, 9.2 centimeters long, and weighed 201 grams, being a little more than three times heavier than the average chicken egg at 60 grams.
The ostrich egg is the largest (in reference to mass/volume) example of a single biological cell. The longest single is the nerve cell in giant squid and other huge sea animals.
Eggs are the only naturally edible source of vitamin D.
Eggs are good for your eyes, hair, nails, liver, brain, nerves, and heart.
Eggs make a great facial mask and shampoo.
