All About Eggs (ePub)

Everyone knows that of all foods - not excluding meat - the egg is the most nutritious and healthiest food.

Eggs that are used for eating are produced by the hen, duck, turkey, goose, guinea fowl, peacock, seagull, pigeon and ostrich. The hen's egg, however, surpasses all in taste and quality. Some prefer the duck egg, not because of its taste, but because it contains more nitrogenous and fatty substances. Apart from their size, the eggs of the turkey and the gosling have no other characteristic. The quail egg is very small, but with a superb taste. So dear to the eccentric desires of Vitellius and Caligula, the peacock's egg has a sweet, sometimes terribly disgusting taste. Seagull eggs, which are abundantly collected on the shores of the Baltic and North Seas, have their convinced fans, despite the rather strong smell of fish oil.

The Arabs consider an ostrich egg soon buried in the sand to be a pleasant feast. Not so big and more delicate, the green cassowary egg is a great food - it has the taste of a goose egg accompanied by a delicate exotic aroma. The delicious taste of the pheasant egg is vaguely reminiscent of the meat of the bird itself. And on the coast of Madagascar and in Tibet there is a trade in turtle eggs, which are in great demand by the Chinese.

Yet the crown falls on the hen's egg. Firstly, because it is cheaper and secondly, it is always at hand.